In the second half of the twentieth century, new neoclassical trends dominated in the history of economic thought, partly referring to the foundations of classical economics.

However, at the end of the twentieth century and in recent years, various concepts that complement or partly undermine certain assumptions of neoclassical economics are developing dynamically.

These are primarily theories based on conducted studies on behavioral consumer behavior in consumer goods markets, investors and shareholders in the capital markets, entrepreneurs in the markets of capital goods, etc.

These various theories supported by the results of research are in the mainstream of behavioral economics.

However, despite the ongoing development of behavioral economics, neoclassical economics still dominates in academic textbooks dedicated to students of economics.

Neoclassical economics is based on the fundamental assumption that people make rational economic decisions.

Advocates of the neoclassical economics suggest that the theory of neoclassical economics correlates with the key assumptions of psychology regarding rational human behavior.

I agree with this correlation that irrational decisions only apply to situations in which people feel very strong emotions of both negative nature, such as anger, hostility, hatred or positive emotions associated with feeling of love, friendship or belonging to a given social group.

On the other hand, economic decisions are always made rationally according to classical and neoclassical economics.

However, in recent years, on the basis of the development of behavioral economics, there are more and more data and results of research carried out, that unfortunately there are many examples suggesting the irrationality of some economic decisions.

Often, consumers make unnecessary purchases based on an efficiently carried out advertising campaign for products or services.

Perhaps consumers are more and more often susceptible to the impact of effective advertising campaigns, in addition to traditional media, also in new online media, including on social media portals, where viral marketing is widely used.

Often in advertising campaigns, specific products and services are presented as unique, innovative or having such features as opposed to the substitutional offer of competition.

The message that is not always formulated in the advertising campaign is truthful, but some consumers may receive such a message as objective and this translates into an increase in the sale of a specific, effectively advertised assortment.

In addition, there are price promotional campaigns in large-format stores, which also stimulate consumer interest, increase sales.

Pricing promotional campaigns often also increase the purchase of unnecessary goods for consumers or proverbial buying.

A negative aspect of such buying is the subsequent discomfort of spending too much money on this type of shopping, despite the fact that the main activation factor was an effective price promotional campaign.

Often it happens that in the situation of this type of occasional purchases for stock some of the purchased products are thrown away, that is, they end up in the trash.

Especially often such situations happen, if consumers under the influence of emotional susceptibility to marketing content used in an advertising campaign make purchases of food products with a short shelf-life date.

These are typical situations indicating the unnecessary purchases of unnecessary products by consumers.

In such situations, the effectiveness of advertising campaigns can be analyzed in terms of the psychological impact on consumer emotions, so this is the subject matter of the issue described as behavioral economics.

According to classical and neoclassical economics, consumers rarely change their preferences, and if they change it is a very slow process, difficult to diagnose in a short time.

In addition, according to the trend of neoclassical economics, citizens, households and business entities maximize their own profits in the conditions of competitive market structures.

However, the results of experiments and conducted research in the field of behavioral economics have already questioned the fundamental assumptions on which the theory of choice in the neo-classical economy is based.

Why is it so that people do not always make rational economic decisions?

The answer to this is given by behavioral economics, which deals with cognitive errors affecting people's decisions.

These decisions are not always rational and because they concern many shopping situations not always needed products, so they are also of significance for the domestic or even global economy.

The global significance of these not always rational economic decisions arises when the effects of these decisions are analyzed in the context of economic globalization processes.

In addition, the results of research in the field of behavioral economics indicate that consumer preferences may change depending on the context, ie the specificity of a particular situation in which decisions are made.

In addition to the study of consumer behavior on the basis of behavioral economics, there are behaviors of, for example, investors on capital markets who also often do not have full information about the issuer of securities buy or sell shares, bonds and other instruments listed on securities markets under the influence of partly emotions and not just rationally made decisions.

Emotion, which often accompanies decision making about purchasing or selling securities, may have positive acceptance of high risk levels in good times in different markets and as a result of the so-called "sheep's rush", which boils down to buying, because it was previously bought by a friend and neighbor, and earned it.

There may also be irrational decisions on the sale of securities in a situation where it later turns out to be a short-term panic on the capital market.

In the light of the above examples, irrational economic decisions made by citizens and economic entities often conditioned by the psychological factor of positive or negative emotions are more and more numerous.

This raises the question why more and more in recent years we will be able to provide these examples confirming the validity of the development of research in the field of behavioral economics.

Is it because in recent years more and more economists are growing up and seeing research in the field of behavioral economics?

Or rather because in the deregulated financial markets market instability situations are more frequent, markets tend to lose their market equilibrium, financial crises occur more frequently, and the scale of undervaluation and the more revalue of market valuations of certain assets can be more and more pronounced on stock exchanges.

Analogously, the impact of more and more effective advertising campaigns on consumers, advertising campaigns also conducted on social media websites can increase the importance of occasional emotions in the context of decisions to buy specific products or services.

In view of the above, the current question is: Do consumers always make rational consumer decisions when purchasing economic goods?

Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.