Abstract:

Regarding the impact of life events on individual’s emotional reactions and behavior options, all the studies have tried to explain the mechanism of life events impacting on individuals from the perspective of relation between different life events and behavior decision-making, while different theories have different interpretations. Behavior/Economic Model regard people as “absolutely rational”, while Averaging/Summation Model, Peak-End Rule and Mental Accounting Model regard people as “bounded rational”. By detailed comparison of the latter three theories, we find that they are different from the exploring perspectives, the definition of life events and the choice of research methods. Future research should expand on the following aspects, such as discrimination and integration of different models, the interaction between different attributions of life events and individuals’ as well as the diversification of research methods, etc.

Key words: life events, averaging/summation model, peak-end rule, mental accounting