[Psychology of Money Guide #10] Here’s a coin toss proposal: If it’s heads, I give you 1.5 million KRW. If it’s tails, you give me 1 million KRW. The expected value favors you. But if we assume loss hurts twice as much as gain, The joy of winning is 150, The pain of losing is 200. The math flips. This is called loss aversion—the tendency to feel losses more intensely than equivalent gains. Is it exactly twice as painful? In 2024, analyzing 150 papers and 607 estimates, the average came out to roughly double. However, the median was around 1.7 times, indicating variation across studies. To be precise, we should say: “Losses are generally about twice as painful.”