New study: Sadness triggers overspending
Posted
Feb 08 2008, 05:54 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Feeling blue? Don't go shopping. The Associated Press reports on a new study that seems to confirm the so-called "misery is not miserly effect." "Study participants who watched a sadness-inducing video clip offered to pay nearly four times as much money to buy a water bottle than a group that watched an emotionally neutral clip," the AP said. (To read the entire story, click here.)
Two findings of this study make it all the more troubling: Spendthrift behavior can be triggered merely by watching a sad movie. Also, the participants who were more willing to part with their cash denied that the video had anything to do with it, the story said. "This is a phenomenon that occurs without awareness," Harvard professor Jennifer Lerner told the AP. "This is really different from the idea of retail therapy, where people are feeling negative and want to cheer themselves up by shopping. People have no idea this is going on."
The study worked like this: One group of young adults watched a clip from "The Champ," a 1979 movie starring Jon Voight, and a similar group saw part of a National Geographic film about the Great Barrier Reef. Each person was given $10 to participate. After watching one of the clips, the participants were told they could use some of that money to buy a sporty water bottle. "The sad group offered to trade an average of $2.11, compared with 56 cents for the neutral group," the AP said.
