Heads, you win 150; tails, you lose 100. It's a good bet, yet most people turn it down. Kahneman and Tversky showed back in 1979 that a loss weighs roughly twice as much as a gain of the same size. In 2020, a replication across 19 countries found the same pattern. It's why selling, throwing out or giving up feels so hard.
Remembering is not replaying a recording — it is rebuilding. Each time you recall a memory, it becomes temporarily malleable and can be altered before being stored again. That is why two people can sincerely remember the same event… differently.
In 2003, Johnson and Goldstein compared European countries. Where you must tick a box to become a donor, consent rates ranged from 4% to 28%. Where you're a donor by default unless you opt out, they topped 85%. People aren't more generous on one side; most simply stick with whatever option was chosen for them.