Justin Field Just Stopped at the Exxon Station on the Way

question 44

Essay

Justin Field just stopped at the Exxon station on the way to campus and bought four Butterfinger candy bars, two 20-ounce bottles of grape-watermelon Snapple, and 10 gallons of gas. His marginal-utility-to-price ratios are 3.21 for the Butterfingers, 4.8 for the Snapples, and 5.7 for the gas. Explain why this set of purchases did not maximize Ryan's utility and how could he have increased his utility.

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Definitions:

Discrimination Learning Stages

The phases through which an organism passes when learning to respond differently to various stimuli, improving its ability to differentiate between them.

Hull And Spence

Psychologists Clark L. Hull and Kenneth Spence are known for their contributions to behaviorist theory, especially regarding motivation and learning processes.

Stimulus Generalization

the tendency for the conditioned response to be elicited by stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus.