Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom? Never told
Speaker 1: you from housetop works dot com. Hey thereon, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Kristen, This is Molly. Molly, as promised,
Speaker 1: UM and I honored this podcast. I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you a nickname of mine, given to me by by
Speaker 1: a boyfriend that you probably have never never heard. No,
Speaker 1: I've been promised this anecdote for today. It's not too revolutionary,
Speaker 1: but Molly, Um, I am in some circles known as
Speaker 1: the thrifty nickel. Oh, it's so adorable. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of adorable. But also, um, it's sort of an insult
Speaker 1: because I really don't like spending money. I'm you could
Speaker 1: say I'm a little bit of a tight watz apply. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like to shop, but I shop alone. I go
Speaker 1: for things. I'm kind of like, you know, like a hunter.
Speaker 1: I can see it, get it, leave. I'm not a
Speaker 1: person to go try on fifty dresses and see which
Speaker 1: one I like. If I don't like it on the rack,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. Any better be coming with me? Do you
Speaker 1: um have guilt when you shop. Is that what kind
Speaker 1: of makes you a Thrifty Nickel buyer's remorse, Yes, it's
Speaker 1: it's a big problem. Um, if I don't, if I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm getting a good bargain on something,
Speaker 1: I will probably be back in that store returning the
Speaker 1: item in the following week. So you do buy the item.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it depends. Uh, it more depends on my mood.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times I'll just avoid shopping all together.
Speaker 1: And unless I know that there's some kind of big
Speaker 1: sale going on. Well, this all leads us into the
Speaker 1: idea of I'm sure Kristen is not the only Thrifty
Speaker 1: Nickel listening today. Um. And but on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about female issues on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and one of the big female stereotypes is that girls
Speaker 1: love to shop. Um, you know, and maybe you really
Speaker 1: actually kind Do you love to shop and you like
Speaker 1: the reward of getting a big deal? Oh? Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean there's nothing like finding a fair boots that are
Speaker 1: fifty percent off. I mean I love it. I feel
Speaker 1: like I want a marathon or something. Right, And so,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just bombarded with these images and movies
Speaker 1: and TV of like the girls loaded down with bags.
Speaker 1: And what's kind of interesting is that the reason I
Speaker 1: was asking Christen about guilt is that scientists have hooked
Speaker 1: our brains up to machines and tried to figure out
Speaker 1: why we buy what we buy and how that makes
Speaker 1: us feel. And what we're gonna get into later is
Speaker 1: that this totally affects the way that people market goods
Speaker 1: and services to women. And I like talking about that
Speaker 1: stereotype about women shopping. I think that women and men
Speaker 1: certainly shop in a different way, and we shop four
Speaker 1: different things. I think I saw in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal yesterday that in terms of retail items, women's shop
Speaker 1: on a one to three year cycle, or as men
Speaker 1: wal shop on a ten year cycle. So they buy
Speaker 1: We buy clothes for a season. Men buy clothes for
Speaker 1: years to come. But as a matter of fact, according
Speaker 1: to the American Journal of Psychiatry, men are just as
Speaker 1: likely to shop compulsively as we are. They just might
Speaker 1: be more reluctant to to let anyone know about that
Speaker 1: their secret, their secret. Shame. Yeah, So I think that
Speaker 1: we should talk about how just a brain, male, female, whatever,
Speaker 1: how our brain processes shopping, right, because if you learn
Speaker 1: from this podcast that you can blame all your shopoholic
Speaker 1: nature's or your thirty nickel natures on your brain. You know,
Speaker 1: that might make it easier easier stomach. Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: start off. We've got an article called is my brain
Speaker 1: making me buy things I don't need? And it revolves
Speaker 1: around the study. Research was published in January two thousand
Speaker 1: seven UH and the journal Neuron that UH shows that
Speaker 1: when we spend, it's because things are going on in
Speaker 1: our brain that we have no control over whatsoever. Right,
Speaker 1: there are all these cognitive functions that are going on,
Speaker 1: but they're also emotional issue us attached to shopping and
Speaker 1: actually purchasing something. And when the researchers hooked participants up
Speaker 1: to an f M R I machine, they found that
Speaker 1: an area of the brain called the nucleus incumbents lights
Speaker 1: up when we see something that we like and want
Speaker 1: to buy. Now, this section near the middle of the
Speaker 1: brain is associated with our rewards center. If we see
Speaker 1: something that we like and then we we have it,
Speaker 1: will feel a sense of reward like I do when
Speaker 1: I buy bargain sweaters or whatever it might be. UM
Speaker 1: and then once once we see the price, are an
Speaker 1: area in our brain called the mesiol prefrontal cortex lights
Speaker 1: up in this region the brain is known for higher
Speaker 1: executive functions, and it seems like the when when this
Speaker 1: part of the brain lights up, it's like we're trying
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not what we're looking at is
Speaker 1: worth the actual cost of it, and then the actual
Speaker 1: decision of whether or not we're going to purchase that
Speaker 1: handbag or pair of boots or whatever happens in the
Speaker 1: insula and depending on whether or not we buy it,
Speaker 1: it will it will light up. Right. So, how this
Speaker 1: all worked in practice was when the people went into
Speaker 1: the MRI machine, they were handed forty dollars in cash.
Speaker 1: They've guide in their hand, it's there is to spend,
Speaker 1: and then they're shown images of these things that you know,
Speaker 1: they can decide to buy or not. They can push
Speaker 1: a yes no button and say yeah, I want that,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of the experiment, the prices
Speaker 1: were subtracted from their forty dollars and the change was theirs.
Speaker 1: So before people even push the yes no button, scientists
Speaker 1: could tell what they were going to pick based on
Speaker 1: whether that part that Christmas talking about the insula lit up. Um.
Speaker 1: The insula is just sort of be no, you're it's
Speaker 1: kind of like your no button. Basically, if you're insula
Speaker 1: lit up, then you decide not to buy the product
Speaker 1: because as the ends didn't justify the means, um, but
Speaker 1: if it didn't light up, then you were like bye
Speaker 1: bye bye. And it's interesting because the insula is sort
Speaker 1: of the opposite of the brain's pleasure center. It's more
Speaker 1: associated with with pain and regret. So if the insula
Speaker 1: is lighting up and you go ahead and buy it anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, you might feel horribly guilty about it, but
Speaker 1: it's very unconscious. You definitely haven't felt the pain yet.
Speaker 1: You can just sort of, you know, party brains anticipating
Speaker 1: that there will be pain because this is happening so fast.
Speaker 1: I mean when they were flashing these images on the
Speaker 1: screen and then the price that was happening all within
Speaker 1: maybe ten seconds. Oh, I would bet less, but I
Speaker 1: mean I have no time on the matter. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it is happening very fast, which is why, um, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be making quick spur of the moment purchases.
Speaker 1: That's how you get of you know, you don't give
Speaker 1: your brain time to do all it's deliberating and this
Speaker 1: action that happens in the brain is something that behavioral
Speaker 1: economists called trans action utility. Yes, and that's the measure
Speaker 1: of whether or not what we are getting is going
Speaker 1: to be a good deal and therefore pleasurable, or if
Speaker 1: we're going to um be spending too much than we
Speaker 1: should and we'll be experiencing pain from it. Now, so experimently,
Speaker 1: just described works for males or females. Everyone has this
Speaker 1: going on in their brain when they go shopping. But
Speaker 1: the reason it really relates to females in particular is
Speaker 1: that women buy more. You know, we are in charge
Speaker 1: of a lot more household purchases. Um, we have the
Speaker 1: stereotype that we'd like to go buy clothes and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, throw off an afternoon that way. So, knowing
Speaker 1: this about everyone's brains, there's a field called neuroeconomics that
Speaker 1: goes even deeper into a female brain to say, what
Speaker 1: else can we learn about a female's brain that will
Speaker 1: influence how she buys things? Right? And there was an
Speaker 1: article in The New York Times um talking about how
Speaker 1: snorro economics applied to you a new advertising campaign by
Speaker 1: Freedo Lay Company. They know that women snack more often
Speaker 1: than men, but for some reason, women were not going
Speaker 1: for Lay's products. They were eating other things. And they
Speaker 1: also knew, as we were talking before that that women
Speaker 1: were experiencing all of this guilt associated with snacking, so
Speaker 1: they wanted to develop these Uh so they wanted to
Speaker 1: develop an ad campaign specifically targeting women to get them
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the guilt, but go ahead and buy some
Speaker 1: freed A Lay products anyway. Right. They knew that based
Speaker 1: on MRI scans, that women were relied more on the
Speaker 1: emotional side of their brain when making choices. So they're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: women have all this guilt when they eat snacks. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't want to say just guilt free, because you
Speaker 1: know that still implies that guilt could be had. But
Speaker 1: the new packaging talks about how it's just so good
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, and and the commercials are very like, hey, gals,
Speaker 1: we know what it's like. You're at the gym and
Speaker 1: you're hungry and you're all sweaty. Why don't you just
Speaker 1: open up a bag of sonships because you're acknowledging that
Speaker 1: you're doing something good for you. Like, you're gonna start
Speaker 1: seeing lots of packaging. Um that emphasizes the healthy ingredients,
Speaker 1: puts that on the forefront as opposed to zero calories,
Speaker 1: which reminds you about calories altogether. They're going to bypass
Speaker 1: that and go straight to like, oh don't you love
Speaker 1: all natural products? And and these little animated female characters
Speaker 1: that they're using are meant to, like, you know, really
Speaker 1: commiserate with with the women and the fake women in
Speaker 1: in the ads. You got there, I've been there. I'm
Speaker 1: just hungry. I just want to snack. And don't they
Speaker 1: talk about I didn't realize they had accents in the commercial, Christen,
Speaker 1: but don't they all my mind? Don't they also talk
Speaker 1: about stuff, um like bras and shopping and all these
Speaker 1: things that women supposedly love and want camaraderie with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of sex in the city on steroids in
Speaker 1: a horrible way to make your b to make you
Speaker 1: buy potato chips. Um. So that's just one very small
Speaker 1: example of how they're using your brain to get to you. Um.
Speaker 1: But Chris, and I know you brought some information in
Speaker 1: about how they arrange grocery stores just to get you. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: walk into any grocery store and you've got uh neuroeconomics
Speaker 1: in its finest form. You know, uh, sorry, okay, what's uh? So,
Speaker 1: the area immediately inside a supermarket where they usually place
Speaker 1: a lot of displays and promotional items is called the
Speaker 1: decompression zone, and this is really where, uh they want
Speaker 1: you to just you know, take take in the store,
Speaker 1: you know, start seeing things that you want to buy,
Speaker 1: and then you move into fresh fruits and vegetables. And
Speaker 1: this always bugs me, and I think it bugs a
Speaker 1: lot of other people because if you buy your bananas
Speaker 1: first and then you go buy you know, your can
Speaker 1: be or whatever it is, your bananas are going to
Speaker 1: get squashed. But the thinking behind this is that selecting
Speaker 1: your good, wholesome fresh food is a good way to
Speaker 1: start shopping. You're doing something good for yourself, so that
Speaker 1: by the time you make your way to the middle
Speaker 1: of the store and start running into oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: freedom a product or something like that, uh, you'll be
Speaker 1: more willing to indulge a little bit. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you start off good, then you're like, oh, well, I
Speaker 1: have fruit, I can have cookies too. And they put
Speaker 1: the common items like milk and cheese and eggs and
Speaker 1: things that most people just need to run in and
Speaker 1: buy in the back of the store, so that you
Speaker 1: have to walk through other aisles of food that you
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't normally walk through. And this is all
Speaker 1: to boost your dwell time or your time and your
Speaker 1: store because the thinking goes that the longer you spend
Speaker 1: at a store, the more likely you are to buy more.
Speaker 1: And so you're and plus I would bet I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no research on this, but I bet your brain
Speaker 1: gets tired. We were talking earlier about you know, these
Speaker 1: trains actions that are happening in our brain between pain
Speaker 1: and pleasure. By the time you get to the cookie,
Speaker 1: I'll I don't know if your brain could still handle that.
Speaker 1: Mine can't mind gets overloaded at the grocery store as
Speaker 1: the cookies. But Thrifty Nickel, I just have to consider
Speaker 1: our grocery stores by laying out their stores this way
Speaker 1: of doing us a favor. Um, I need a little
Speaker 1: more information and I can't make a judgment call them
Speaker 1: that yet. So I was looking at this Women's health article.
Speaker 1: It's called how Manolo's Can Save Your Life. And you
Speaker 1: may not like this, Thrifty Nickel, but the article says yes.
Speaker 1: The article talks about how great shopping makes you feel.
Speaker 1: It only talks about that pain, that pleasure center while
Speaker 1: ignoring the role of the insula. And it basically says
Speaker 1: that by activating that pleasure center so much, you're just
Speaker 1: releasing endorphins all throughout your body. You're gonna be in
Speaker 1: great shape because of it. You're gonna be happier because
Speaker 1: of it. Essentially, you're making the world a better place
Speaker 1: because not only are you buying something nice for yourself,
Speaker 1: you're helping out that lady in the shop. You know,
Speaker 1: You're it's gonna be great. You're gonna stay active, You're
Speaker 1: gonna stay shopping. Yea consumerism alright, Molly, I mean I
Speaker 1: I I buy that there is an innate connection between
Speaker 1: pleasurable shopping and uh, you know, emotions and all the
Speaker 1: positive effects of that and and that's fantastic. But Molly,
Speaker 1: how how pleasurable and how how good for your brain
Speaker 1: is it going to be? When you get your credit
Speaker 1: card bill in the mail six weeks later and our
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in debt? That's true, You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to cancel your subscription to Women's Health magazine, which is
Speaker 1: who told you to do that? In the first, lay, Um,
Speaker 1: so let's go to a more reasonable source. I suppose
Speaker 1: we'll go to the Boston Globe, which was also talking
Speaker 1: about the experiment that we talked about at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the podcast with the with the two parts of
Speaker 1: the brain that are in conflict whenever it was the
Speaker 1: cumbents and the insula. Nice, so whenever you are deciding something,
Speaker 1: that's the deliberation that's going on in there. And they
Speaker 1: give us some hips on how to overcome the battle
Speaker 1: to win our battle against our credit card debt. Okay,
Speaker 1: cognition over emotion, yes, um, to say nothing of the hormones.
Speaker 1: But first and foremost researchers say, you've got to stop
Speaker 1: using your credit card. It's too um, it's too easy
Speaker 1: to do. You don't have that sense of guilt when
Speaker 1: you have to like just swipe something that you will
Speaker 1: if you're counting out your cold heart cash, right, there's uh,
Speaker 1: there's actual pain kind of associated with just seeing the
Speaker 1: cash leaving your hands or your nickels or your nickels. Um,
Speaker 1: I should probably stop mentioning that as much as I am,
Speaker 1: or you won't tell me any more deep dark secret um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you have to And internet that's why internet
Speaker 1: shopping is the worst. This is what I do and
Speaker 1: I feel bad. I just go online, go to Amazon,
Speaker 1: one click away, one click away, and you're done. So
Speaker 1: don't shop online. Actually go to the god of store.
Speaker 1: And you do need to know your feelings. Do you
Speaker 1: shop more when you're sad? Um? Even men tend to,
Speaker 1: you know, shop when they're sad. Yeah. I only shop
Speaker 1: if I'm in a shopping mood, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times I think it probably is more correlated if I'm
Speaker 1: feeling kind of down, I need a new shirt or
Speaker 1: something to douce my my steam a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're trying to activate that pleasure center and if you're
Speaker 1: but if you can't, just be happy and go shopping.
Speaker 1: Because I was reading that if your pleasure centers are activated,
Speaker 1: you're like on a roll. For example, the Boston Globe
Speaker 1: talks about how men who had just looked at erotic
Speaker 1: pictures were more likely to shop for more because they
Speaker 1: are I had the pleasure center turned on and they
Speaker 1: didn't want to turn it off. Well, so don't look
Speaker 1: at erotic pictures. So before you go shopping lesson number
Speaker 1: two important tip of the day. Well, Molly one one
Speaker 1: thing that you also have to avoid. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about tips for overcoming this this instinct a shop is
Speaker 1: avoiding the dressing room. Really, yes, An article in The
Speaker 1: Economist magazine reported that if customers try something on, they
Speaker 1: are they have a chance of actually buying it, as
Speaker 1: opposed to a fifty eight percent chance of seeing if
Speaker 1: they just like it on the rack. If you take
Speaker 1: it in there, I mean, it's a commitment you have.
Speaker 1: You've taken the time put it on, You've seen what
Speaker 1: it's like, you're imagining the shoes that will go with
Speaker 1: it as good as yours. Wow. All right, Well, one
Speaker 1: more tip for you, don't buy so much in one store.
Speaker 1: Don't go into that dressing room with twenty things to
Speaker 1: try on, because then, like Kristen said, you're probably gonna
Speaker 1: walk out with ten and it's not gonna be such
Speaker 1: a big deal that you're buying so much anymore. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you buy, you know, ten dollar thing there and
Speaker 1: a ten dollar thing there, you notice more that you
Speaker 1: keep pulling out the credit card. Right, Just from experience,
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely a sort of a threshold of shopping.
Speaker 1: For instance, I went shopping for makeup last weekend, and
Speaker 1: makeup is really easy for me to buy because it's
Speaker 1: very small. A lot of times it will cost less
Speaker 1: than thirty dollars. So I went in, you know, I
Speaker 1: was looking for some the mess gara and I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I got this. Then I saw an eyeliner pencil. Okay,
Speaker 1: all these things I can hold in my hand. By
Speaker 1: the time I left, I had like five things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've gotta keep moving. But don't I look facuse Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. Wish you could see Kristin. But Kristen, this
Speaker 1: is a specific tip for you. It's give me our
Speaker 1: last one. And it's specifically for those of us who
Speaker 1: do try to be thrifting nickels every now and then.
Speaker 1: And that is you have to be aware of bargains
Speaker 1: sometimes because the lower price makes you think that you
Speaker 1: can't do anything wrong. It makes you think you can't
Speaker 1: go wrong. You've got to buy it's a bargain. I
Speaker 1: have made many many erroneous thrift store purchases. Yes, So
Speaker 1: you've got to not let your insula. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about combining that pleasure center. But you
Speaker 1: also can't let your insula just guilt you into buying
Speaker 1: things because they're good deals. If you don't need it,
Speaker 1: you don't need it, but you know what you do need.
Speaker 1: Molly what more information about the brain and shopping. So
Speaker 1: if you would like to learn more about all of
Speaker 1: this and read the article is my brain making Me
Speaker 1: buy things that I don't need? By Julia Layton, you
Speaker 1: can go to how stuff works dot com and if
Speaker 1: you have any questions or comments for me and Molly,
Speaker 1: you can email us at mom stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for moralness and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Because it how stuff works dot com brought to you
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
Speaker 1: you