If you want to spend less, use cash, research confirms today.

Psychologists carried out four separate studies of how much people spend on their credit cards and in vouchers compared with cash. The results, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, showed that participants spent cash much more carefully than other forms of payment.

The authors, Priya Raghubir of New York University and Joydeep Srivastava of the University of Maryland, ranked payment methods from more transparent (cash) to less (credit cards and vouchers). The authors wanted to test whether “less transparent payment forms tend to be treated like play money and are hence more easily spent”.

One study was disguised as a market research exercise. Those questioned were given a description and a menu for a fictional restaurant. Half of the respondents were told the restaurant would accept credit cards, the other half were told it would accept cash only. Res-pondents were prepared to spend significantly more on their meal when they knew they could pay by card.

In another study volunteers were asked to plan the shopping for a celebratory meal. The participants were given a list of things to be bought and asked to estimate the total cost. Those who planned to pay by credit card thought the meal would cost on average $175 (€123, £99). Those who planned to pay cash set the limit at a more conservative $145.

There may be a way to combat this credit-card in-duced profligacy. The re-searchers asked other volunteers to go about the same task differently. They had to estimate the price for each individual item and then add them up. This time, credit card users made lower estimates of about $135.

The authors summarised their findings, saying that “the more transparent the payment type, the greater the ‘pain of paying' ”.

昨日发布的研究证实，如果你想花钱少一点，就使用现金。

心理学家对人们使用信用卡、代金券以及现金这三种不同支付方式所消费的金额开展了四项单独的研究，结果表明，参与者花现金要比其它支付方式谨慎得多。《实验心理学杂志：应用》(Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied)刊登了研究结果。

纽约大学(New York University)的普里亚•拉古比尔(Priya Raghubir)和马里兰大学(University of Maryland)的乔伊迪普•斯里瓦斯塔瓦(Joydeep Srivastava)是这份报告的作者。他们将支付方式从比较透明的（现金）到相对不透明的（信用卡和代金券）进行了排序。两位作者想测试，“相对不透明的支付方式，是否更容易被认为是在玩钱，从而花起来更轻松一点”。

其中有一项研究被伪装成了一次市场研究实践。调查人员向被调查者描述了一家虚拟饭店和菜单。有一半被调查者被告知那家饭店可以接受信用卡，而其余的一半被告知饭店只接受现金。当被调查者得知可以使用信用卡付账时，他们在餐饮上的计划花费增加了很多。

在另一项研究中，志愿者被要求为一次庆宴计划采购事宜。调查人员给了参与者一张购物清单，并要求他们估计总花销。那些计划用信用卡支付的人认为这次庆宴的平均花费为175美元，而打算用现金付账的人则给出了145美元这一比较保守的上限。

可能会有方法来抑制这种信用卡肆意消费。研究人员要求其他志愿者从不同角度参加上述测试。他们需估计每一个单项的价格，然后把它们相加。这次，信用卡使用者做出了约135美元的较低估计。

作者总结他们的研究发现，得出结论称：“支付方式越透明，‘付账的痛苦'就越大”。