[Creative Cultivation Program] “Consumerism Trap” – Whenever I feel stressed, I go on a shopping spree?

If a person is sick, he can take medicine to treat it, but how to cure unhappiness? With the development of social economy, whether it is the elite white-collar workers in big cities or people working and living in small counties, they are facing different pressures. Stress is a stress state that obviously causes people psychological discomfort and emotional tension. In order to cope with stress, we see that everyone has also prescribed a variety of "folk remedies", such as taking a spontaneous trip, sweating on the sports field, enjoying delicious food, watching movies, and going on a shopping spree. Of course, trapped by the limitations of time and space, more and more people choose to go shopping or online shopping to relieve stress.

In your daily life, you may have done the following:

After working in front of the computer screen for a whole day, I feel headache and drowsy. At this time, I can't help but click on the icon of the mobile shopping app and order a bunch of snacks or a piece of clothing I have long admired to reward myself. Instantly, I feel happy again;

Since becoming a housewife, I have endless housework to do and homework to help. The trivialities of the family make me exhausted, so I go shopping with my bestie at the mall, and instantly all my fatigue and complaints disappear.

You have just broken up with your love and you are extremely sad. You cannot digest the depressed mood for a while, but you also hope to get out of the shadow of the breakup as soon as possible. So you go out, vowing to find back the happiness lost in love in the shopping mall.

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I have worked so hard, why not spend some money to make myself happy? Therefore, shopping as a self-reward can offset the negative emotions in my heart and eliminate stress. It not only successfully diverts the physical fatigue, but also serves as a compensation for the deprivation of time and energy, bringing instant pleasure and satisfaction. However, excessive or impulsive consumption, after a short period of stress relief, will also bring more and more problems, such as shopping addiction.

So why does shopping addiction occur?

First of all, the formation of the habit of shopping to relieve stress is closely related to operant conditioning in psychology.

Stress leads to bad mood, and shopping helps you get rid of negative emotions. Over time, you will start buying things whenever you are unhappy, thus forming a shopping stimulus-response connection of "stress - shopping", which is constantly reinforced and eventually enters unconscious operant conditioning. The famous psychologist Skinner conducted an experiment: mice were locked in a box. There was a lever in the box, and when the lever was touched, food would fall out. At first, the mice fumbled around in the box until they accidentally touched the lever and got food. After many times, the mice learned this rule: if they want food, they press the lever.

The same is true for using shopping to relieve stress. After a shopping experience, you may find that "buy, buy, buy" can relieve stress. After doing it many times, you will establish an operant conditioning reflex. After that, once you feel stressed, you will unconsciously want to spend. Over time, it will become a subconscious habit.

But then again, why does shopping make us happy? This has to do with the reward mechanism in our brain. In the 1950s, James Olds and Peter Milner of McGill University in Canada had an idea to connect the subcortical areas of several mice to a small pedal. When the mice pressed the pedal, the connected neurons were activated by a weak electric shock. Olds and Milner were surprised to find that their mice put this activity ahead of all other activities, so much so that they pressed the pedal 700 times a day without eating or drinking. The brain's reward circuit was discovered in this way: the activation of certain neurons in the brain is a reward, even more intense than a big meal placed in front of a hungry person. This is because the "reward circuit" is working.

Irrational consumer behavior When we become crazy "shoppers", we rationally tell ourselves that our wallets are in urgent need, but we cannot control our actions, because in our minds, there is also something called "reward circuit". Generally speaking, the innate reward circuit helps survival, for example, it will reward you after you complete something, releasing some chemicals in the brain, such as dopamine and oxytocin. The excitement of shopping releases high levels of dopamine by triggering the reward pathway, and dopamine creates a new neural circuit, which is mainly to guide people to continue the behavior that triggers the release of dopamine.

When this behavior is repeated, the neural circuits in the brain become stronger and more eager for more stimulation and pleasure. Over time, the excessive release of chemicals over time causes changes in other parts of the brain. Shopping addiction is a typical type of bad behavior, which has evolved from simply using shopping to relieve stress to feeling uncomfortable if you don't buy things. In order to make yourself happy, you buy like crazy.

However, another cause of shopping addiction may be the compensatory psychology. When desires cannot be satisfied in time, pressure is generated, and there is a feeling of being restricted everywhere. Consumption can bring emotional satisfaction from enjoying the services of others; especially when there is no sense of control over the external environment and powerlessness in reality, but as long as there is money, you can buy whatever you want, and there is a sense of satisfaction in self-worth realization, which is also a compensation for the shortcomings of real life, such as making up for childhood poverty or rejection through shopping. This kind of self-compensation after deprivation, through material gains or enjoyment, to compensate for one's psychological loss, is also the reason for irrational shopping.

In addition to the consumers' own reasons, the market will also use people's various psychological factors to formulate marketing strategies. Live streaming often creates time pressure to encourage consumption, sells anxiety, and combines discounts to empty your pockets. I believe that readers are already familiar with this, so I will not go into details here.

To sum up, since shopping is not a perfect way to relieve stress, we should adopt other healthier and more cost-saving methods, such as:

1. Go to the sports field or gym. Studies have shown that exercise can effectively relieve stress and promote mental health.

2. Divert attention and cultivate a variety of hobbies, such as musical instruments, painting, etc.;

3. Find a suitable way to vent, such as chatting with friends, listening to music, or doing some entertainment activities, such as having a big meal or watching a movie;

4. Ensure adequate sleep. Good sleep is conducive to maintaining a good mental state.

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Save your empty wallet and soul by consuming rationally!

This article is produced by Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Cultivation Program. Please indicate the source when reprinting