Buying success

Things don’t always go as you planned. That surprise party would have worked better if the guest of honour hadn’t admitted themselves to hospital with an anxiety attack over being ignored on their birthday by all of their friends and loved ones. Your presentation to the meeting last week would have been more impressive if you had spell-checked your PowerPoint presentation. That romantic dinner would have ended better if your partner hadn’t broken up with you over the “cacao and chia” sorbet. Life is, by its nature, challenging and there will be times when things haven’t gone your way. The question that faces us all is how best to deal with those difficult times and according to a new study one of the worst things you can do is try to compensate by consuming.

Let’s face it, it is a marketer’s job to make you feel that you need their product. So in such a marketing driven society it is not surprise that one of our coping strategies is to “consume”. If, for instance, you receive a psychological blow in the area of your career it is not uncommon to compensate by perhaps buying a new car that projects an image of success to make up for the perceived lack of success. In the same way, romantic rejection may lead to a splurge on clothes or even Beauty treatments to reaffirm your sense of attractive value. The question is though, does consumption like this actually work?

This is what was studied by researchers who found that not only does this compensatory buying strategy not work, it can make things worse. For instance they found that people who had their intelligence undermined might then go and try to compensate by purchasing a scientific magazine. What happened though, was that the magazine simply reminded them of their shortcomings and afterwards as a result they were more likely to be unable to resist sweets. So using products to compensate for lowered self-worth can actually remind you of your limitations causing reductions in self-control and bad behaviours follow.

According to the researchers after a setback you are far better off boosting your sense of your self in a different area of your life rather than buying things that might compensate in the area where the setback occurred. It’s not good news for marketers who want you think that your power lies in what you can buy, but it is great news for people who want more out of life than the next purchase.