"The art of auctioning is an ancient one. The concept of competitively bidding for goods has lasted from Roman times, when spoils of war were divvied up around a planted spear, to the 21st century, when the spoils of the loft are sold through eBay. But despite society's familiarity with the concept, people who take part in auctions still behave in a strange way - they tend to overbid, offering more money than what they actually think an object is worth".

It seems that Delgado's hypothesis was correct - by making people feel as if they stood to lose something, they had found a way of manipulating them into overbidding further than they normally would.

The need to have to have or want to have, or the need to win the bid. As a metaphor, a prosecutor of a case will choose to convict a individual even if he knows the defendant is innocent. He does not care about that at all. All he cares about is winning the conviction regardless weather the defendant is guilty or not. The need to win overrides his good judgment.