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Category: Mastering Your Emotions

Willful Money Blindness & Social Pressures

“Surely, consumers argue, tanning salons wouldn’t be allowed if they were harmful – would they?”  This is an example of social validation that Margaret Heffernan covers in her book Willful Blindness.  Even though both The U.S Department of Health and Human Service, plus the International Agency for Research on Cancer both state that tanning beds have… Continue reading Willful Money Blindness & Social Pressures

On Compulsive Buying: And Then There are the Holidays

We’ve been fortunate that Kathleen Gemmell, an eclectic  author and former compulsive buyer offered us a guest post about her own recovery journey which began four years ago, when her son, who could no longer sit by and watch his mother buy herself into oblivion, arranged for an “intervention.”  Kathleen Gemmell loves playing with written… Continue reading On Compulsive Buying: And Then There are the Holidays

Is online shopping the next danger zone for compulsive buyers?

It might be easier to kick our shopping addictions if the temptations existed only outside our of homes, but with the growing popularity of online shopping, we’re not even safe there. Though there are several papers that focus on compulsive shopping, not as many have factored into their research the impact of online shopping. However,… Continue reading Is online shopping the next danger zone for compulsive buyers?

Getting and Giving the Right Kind of Support: What Overshoppers and their Loved Ones Need to Know!

With the holidays fast approaching, overshoppers and overspenders are heading into some very rough waters. There’s temptation everywhere, and mega pressure to buy, buy, buy. How can you, someone who is struggling with impulses to overshop and overspend, get effective help from your support system? What can you, as a loved one, do or say… Continue reading Getting and Giving the Right Kind of Support: What Overshoppers and their Loved Ones Need to Know!

Compulsive Hoarding and Shopping

It seems like hoarding is getting a lot of media attention recently, with shows like TLC’s Hoarding: Buried Alive and the Hoarders shows on A&E. While popular television tends to sensationalize, the amount of air-time dedicated to this serious problem has the potential for positive outcomes. As blogger Kristin Bell suggests, these shows might alert… Continue reading Compulsive Hoarding and Shopping

Experimental Analysis of the Relationship Between Depressed Mood and Compulsive Buying

Compulsive shopping is a dire issue which has not been investigated sufficiently. A recent study looked at 18 compulsive buyers compared to a 17-person control group. The proposed hypothesis was that the shopaholics would have enhanced memory of appealing consumer objects if they were made to feel depressed. Interestingly, when examined, the control group had stronger… Continue reading Experimental Analysis of the Relationship Between Depressed Mood and Compulsive Buying

Money Can’t Buy Happiness

With a shopping addiction comes an idea that each purchase will improve one’s happiness, creating an artificial “high” that an addict thinks will last. This is not the case, and although happiness spikes before a purchase it ultimately returns to a baseline level afterward. People known as “high-materialist” consumers have (often unreasonably) high expectations about… Continue reading Money Can’t Buy Happiness

Inside the Mind of the Compulsive Shopper

If there is a compulsive shopper in your life, it can be difficult to understand what is going on in their mind, especially if you think it is easy for them to just quit spending so much money. But compulsive shopping is so much more than that. Compulsive shoppers use spending to cope with a… Continue reading Inside the Mind of the Compulsive Shopper