Dollars for Dopamine

...or how consumers can be victims of brain chemistry.

Greetings folks, hope you’re all having a fabulous week - I am significantly more functional now that the weather has cooled. In fact, as I write this, I have a homemade PSL on the go, and a knitted cardigan. Simple joys!

This week’s topic was spurred on by some self-reflection from Thursday evening. I popped into Aldi to purchase decaf coffee (I can’t do caffeine after 2pm, but sometimes I do really fancy a late-night latte) and while I was there, I wondered if they had any coffee syrups. I couldn’t find any by the coffee itself, but Aldi has the magical Middle Aisle and I wondered if I might find any there. Canister of decaf in hand, I prowled down the infamous aisle of the Specialbuys, scanning the steel produce baskets, when there they were…

Two boxes of pure joy.

Now, there are many things in life that I absolutely love. One of these is Pokémon. I have been firmly in the clutches of Game Freak and Nintendo from the tender age of 4. I have never grown out of Pokémon, and given that I’m now 31 and the franchise still brings me a great deal of comfort and joy, I am not likely to. Another thing I love is a puzzle. Jigsaws are fun (Luke bought me a 1000 piece earlier this year featuring all 151 of the first generation of Pokémon and it got me through the tough stages of redundancy - what can I say? The man knows me…) but I also enjoy building kits such as Lego. Needless to say, five seconds after realising what these were, I’d picked up both available versions and trotted over to the self-service checkout, grinning gleefully like a small child.

I excitedly showed Luke what I’d found when I got home (he displayed the appropriate level of interest), and promptly took the photo above to send to a few friends who share my enthusiasm for this sort of thing. I then spent a merry 40 minutes building Pikachu, and then spent the next working day looking forward in anticipation to clocking off of work so I could sit down and build Charmander. Both are now fully constructed and are staring over at me with glazed plastic eyes as I write this.

You might be wondering why I’m bothering to tell you this, or why this was worthy of me reflecting on it at all. Plenty of people buy stupid stuff every single day, probably every single second. But here’s the thing - it is actually unusual for me to see something in a shop and get excited enough to actually part with my money and bring it home.

Minimalism and Me

In my younger adult years, I read a fair few self-help books, one of which was The Joy Of Less by Francine Jay who waxes lyrical about how owning less can lead to a happier life. Reading that book fundamentally altered my brain chemistry a bit. Overnight, I went from being someone who loved to go shopping for fun, to someone who embraced the concept of decluttering. Don’t get me wrong, I was nowhere near as minimalistic as Francine herself, but something in my priorities had shifted and I found myself acquiring less. I decided that with the exception of underwear and socks, I would try to acquire any new clothing second-hand, through charity shops or sites like Vinted. I’ve done this for years. The result of this, as you might imagine, is that over time, I have bought less than a lot of people in my consumer demographic.

These days, the only regular purchase I make for myself beyond essentials is a horror-themed mystery box subscription from the Abominable Book Club (not a sponsored post or anything, but I’ve been a customer for a couple of years now, and I am always delighted to get my box in the post), but other than that, it is unusual for me to make unnecessary purchases.

So, this sudden excitable spend in Aldi was worth reflecting on. Why did I, someone who is usually quite frugal and almost clinical in my purchasing, suddenly feel the mildly absurd urge to buy two kits to build what essentially are toys aimed at seven-year-olds?

Luke and I explored this over breakfast this morning, and this caused me to fall down an online rabbit hole to learn more.

The Psychology of Consumers

Google ‘the psychology of shopping’ and you’ll be met with dozens of articles advising you on how to manipulate consumers into buying more of what you’re selling. However, I’m not selling, so I had to be a little more selective with my reading for this. Fortunately, there were a number of interesting reads available. Psychology expert Dr. Cathrine Jansson-Boyd explains that acquiring new stuff gives us a boost of our fickle friend dopamine. I’ve written about dopamine before in relation to how the engineers behind smartphones are able to manipulate us by causing the phone to give us hits of dopamine; the same principles apply to shopping. Yup, that little rush of joy we feel is chemical, and those amongst you with ADHD are more likely to be personally victimised by dopamine (both its effects and withdrawals). However, once that dopamine wears off, consumers can feel a sense of guilt or shame in relation to their purchases, particularly if they cost a lot of money. That said, this would depend entirely on the values and financial status of the person in question.

In relation to purchasing Pikachu and Charmander, I enjoyed the dopamine hit while it lasted, I had a blast building them, and now I can see them on the shelf and they make me smile. I have not experienced any buyer’s guilt or remorse. They were not expensive, and whilst they were frivolous, I have no regrets. Interestingly, I reflected this morning that had Pikachu and Charmander just been static figurines rather than something to actually build and interact with, I would have just thought “Oh, cool.” and walked away without buying them. For me, it seems, the impulse wasn’t about acquiring the thing so much as the anticipation of doing the activity.

I am not immune to impulse purchases, despite making fewer of them. Looking around our living room, I can see indicators of other occasions where I have splashed a little cash on something that others might term unnecessary: a Pallas cat plushie (he’s adorable, no matter what my mother says), a yellow ukulele with a smiley face on it (£8 from a charity shop), a Pokémon-themed puzzle box (are you seeing a pattern emerging here?) and various knickknacks and pieces of art that others might term hideous but that I consider to be ✨perfect✨.

The vast majority of these impulse purchases come from charity shops. Why? Because for me, the thrill is in the treasure hunt. I seldom go looking for something specific to acquire (if it’s an item of utility, I certainly don’t get a dopamine hit from it - it’s another chore to tick off, in the same way that I don’t get a dopamine hit from buying diesel for my car), but there is something delightful in the charity shop experience of wandering in and discovering some random artifact that speaks to you. Luke has a similar perspective; an avid comic book fan, he regularly buys books online to add to his collection, but this morning, he fondly reminisced about the time he found a set of X-Men singles in our local Oxfam bookstore. I too remember the day he brought these home. I’d sent him out to run an errand, and he’d come home with a stack of books and a sense of euphoria. Again, it’s all about the treasure hunt.

So what’s the take-away from this?

1. Different people get their dopamine in different ways and you can learn to adapt your behaviour to get your dopamine in a way that serves you better if you wish to, but it’s not a simple process and requires some work and some patience.

2. The odd impulse purchase is fine as long as it’s not having a negative impact on your finances or sense of wellbeing - when the impulse becomes a compulsion, it might be time to reassess. Shopping addiction is a recognised form of addiction and it can wreak havoc if not addressed - if you recognise yourself in any of the characteristics on that page, please seek help and understand that it is not a moral or personal failing, you’re fighting a battle with your brain chemistry.

3. Part of me will perpetually be a child who loves building stuff and that is absolutely ok and society needs to not shame people for enjoying harmless little activities which bring joy. In short, don’t yuck someone else’s yum.

Some final interesting research on advertisements

This is slightly unrelated to the whole dopamine thing discussed above, but given that I’m writing about consumer habits, I thought this article I found a short while ago was quite interesting. It is widely assumed that no one is immune to the effects of advertising; there’s an entire industry set up to essentially manipulate consumers into parting with their cash.

However, there is an identifiable demographic who don’t appear to be influenced by the effects of advertising campaigns… drum roll please… people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Yup, an article on Psychology Today has reported that people with autism are more likely to be savvier consumers. In essence, this is due to people with autism being more able to filter out extraneous content and pay more attention to specific factors that help them to make a rational consumer choice.

For them, the package color and the products it is surrounded by are irrelevant to whether or not they put it in their basket. Instead, the autistic shopper focuses on what really matters: ingredients, price, and the necessity of even owning the product. Time and again they select the best product for their needs regardless of how it is displayed. - Richard E. Cytowic M.D. for Psychology Today.

In a world where society pushes everyone to consume more regardless of need, there is a lot to be said for the ability to resist the tactics of advertisers. Another great reminder that not all human beings think alike.

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Well, that’s it for this week, but I would love to know your thoughts on impulse purchases. Is there anything that you find particularly difficult to resist buying? Are you someone who loves the novelty of a new item, the experience associated with it, or just the thrill of the treasure hunt? Let me know in the comments. 💚