[razzaj]

In his book Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely described loss aversion by means of a set of experiments that go something like this:

A- take a person and promise her a substantial reward against completing a set of tasks. Measure stress level during tasks execution

B- take a person and give her the substantial reward up-front, but take back part of the reward for each task she fails. Measure stress level during tasks execution.

Ariely experiments showed stress was significantly higher with subjects that were in Experiment B. So much so that one of the subjects took the money and ran away by jumping out of a window. Ariely attributed the difference in stress levels to "Aversion to loss".

There is a difference between the scenario depicted by the experiments, and the cases in the OP's article. IN the article the author compares DMU as it changes from, say, 10K->2K vs 10K->18K, and argues that the latter has less impact than the former. Whereas in Ariely's experiments it is really comparing 2K-10K vs 10K-2K and showing that even if the Delta is the same, and both points are the same, subjects still experienced a different level of emotional distress due a visceral aversion to loss.