In this series of posts, we’ve been exploring ways to seize the opportunity that the economic crisis emotions and intellect presents to overshoppers. Even before the downturn, of course, most compulsive buyers found themselves in a financial squeeze. But the new economic realities—the slashed value of retirement accounts, the credit crunch, the mortgage debacle, and… Continue reading Use Your Emotions and Intellect to Access “True Wealth”: A Crisis Is a Terrible Thing To Waste (Part V)
Category: Money Psychology
Consumer Behavior: Messages into the Void?
Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (Viking, 2009) . An old philosopher’s question asks: “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” An updated version, tongue-in-cheek, is this: “If a man speaks in the forest and there’s no woman to hear him, is he still… Continue reading Consumer Behavior: Messages into the Void?
Women’s Spending Behavior Linked to Their Menstrual Cycles
In a study that applies to some 40% of all overshoppers, spending behavior has been demonstrably linked to menstrual cycles. Professor Karen Pine, of the University of Hertfordshire, presented “Sheconomics: Why Women’s Emotions Cost Them Money” at the British Psychological Society Annual Conference in April. Specifically, her study looked at 322 pre-menopausal women not using… Continue reading Women’s Spending Behavior Linked to Their Menstrual Cycles
Making Less, Spending More: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
In a Washington Post article earlier this year, Michael Fletcher pointed to some disturbing facts about the direction of the middle class economy. At the heart of the matter is a curious reversal: although the typical American family now earns less than it did seven years ago, its rate of consumption has increased significantly. Median… Continue reading Making Less, Spending More: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Recommended Reading: Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
Consumed offers a disturbing and thought-provoking look into the consumer capitalist system that dominates American society. In bold brush strokes, Barber paints a global economy that is oversaturated with goods and must, therefore, have as its primary goal the manufacturing of needs as opposed to goods. After all, there have to be enough shoppers to… Continue reading Recommended Reading: Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole
Does Money Make us Independent, Indifferent, or Stingy?
A recently published behavioral study ties together nine experiments, each one designed to test the effect of money consciousness on some aspect of social behavior. Using random samples of students and non-students at three universities in different parts of the country, the experimenters divided their subjects into two groups. One group was “money primed,” subtly… Continue reading Does Money Make us Independent, Indifferent, or Stingy?
Recommended Reading: Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions John Howard Prin (New World Library, 2006)
Shame and denial about their behavior propels many overshoppers to hide this addiction—from other people and from themselves. While Secret Keeping does not address the compulsive buyer directly, its focus on the keeping of guilt-laden secrets—and on the compromises and consequences that such a life stance mandates—is very pertinent. According to Prin, secret keepers lead… Continue reading Recommended Reading: Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions John Howard Prin (New World Library, 2006)
Research Reported in the New York Times
Three recent articles in the New York Times attracted our attention. “Money Doesn’t Talk,” by Shivani Vora, looks at the practice among women of disguising some of their purchases by paying cash, a practice that has grown in recent years even though more and more women are themselves wage earners. Why do they do it?… Continue reading Research Reported in the New York Times
Recommended Reading Green with Envy: Why Keeping Up With The Joneses is Keeping Us In Debt
Haven’t we been taught to believe that envy, the only vice warned against in both the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins, is a seriously destructive emotion? There are exceptions. Shira Boss’s envy of her neighbors in the apartment next door was the productive seed that grew into this unusual look at an aspect… Continue reading Recommended Reading Green with Envy: Why Keeping Up With The Joneses is Keeping Us In Debt
Recommended Reading: I Want it Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World Donna Bee-Gates (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Scheduled for publication in January (Palgrave Macmillan), Donna Bee-Gates’ I Want It Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World is ambitious in its scope, depth, and mission. Bee-Gates forcefully argues that too much consumerism is hazardous to children’s health. She documents the rise in materialism in our culture (and throughout the world) and the risks… Continue reading Recommended Reading: I Want it Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World Donna Bee-Gates (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)