The Three Tomatoes generally enjoy shopping. We shop. We buy. We feel good. Simple cause and
effect. It’s Basic Shopping 101. So we were quite amused by an article this
week in The Wall Street Journal on the “scientific reasons” why shopping makes us feel good. Basically it’s that
wonderful little dopamine brain chemical that’s associated with feelings of pleasure
and satisfaction. What amused us though was that the article was clearly written
by a novice shopper who lumps “holiday” shopping in the same category as “retail
therapy,” and then proceeded in all seriousness to offer advice on how to curb
your shopping urges from university researchers who’ve basically studied the impact
of shopping on rats. This was when we started laughing out loud. We think you
will too.
Attention Wall Street Journal: Holiday shopping is not the feel good, dopamine-triggering kind of shopping.
Now as all tomatoes know, there are several different types of shopping. Holiday
shopping is the total stress mode, anti-dopamine kind of shopping - like in, what
the heck do you buy your 84 year old aunt, what kind of office gifts can you select
and not look cheap, secret Santa gift exchanges you don’t really want to participate
in, and the "I can’t stand another crowded store, and will never get this all
done" kind shopping. Retail “therapy” shopping, as you well know, is a totally
different animal. That’s the kind of shopping you do when you’re cranky for
no real reason (or is it just hot in here?). Or you’re cranky with reason (you
just got fired, your husband/boyfriend dumped you for a twenty something, you’re
feeling old, you’re feeling fat…well you know. Then there’s impulse shopping,
which is unexpected, unplanned and that usually results in buying something you
totally regret later and will never wear or use, and/or you wound up spending
some ridiculous sum of money on something you’ve always longed for, but if you
had rationalized, wouldn’t have bought. Casual shopping is the kind where you’re
just sort of browsing through the store and will purchase something only if it
really catches your eye. And of course within each of these major shopping categories,
there are subcategories like alcohol related shopping, guilt shopping, tagging
along with a friend shopping, etc., but unlike the WSJ, you know what they are.
Now with the exception of holiday shopping, most of these other shopping events
do bring pleasure, which was pretty much all we really needed to understand about
shopping. You buy, you’re happy. Now we did find the shopping/dopamine connection
interesting and the University researchers, not to mention the Wall Street Journal
article should have just stopped there. But then we wouldn’t be laughing our
heads off at their shopping “advice” which we reprise here for your pleasure:
-
Buy only the items on your shopping list to avoid impulse purchases.
-
Use cash or debit cards only.
-
Window-shop after the stores close.
-
Don’t shop in new places.
Hello? Are you trying to kill off all of life’s little pleasures? Now that
advice may work for rats, but as for
The Three Tomatoes we really like that dopamine shopping high (kind of makes of nostalgic for the
sixties.)
Copyright©2005. The Three Tomatoes. All rights reserved.
