fashion

TERRY WU: The human brain is not 
a thinking machine that feels,   it's a feeling machine that thinks. Humans have 
this innate desire to seek a sense of control.   Driven by our strong emotions, we stop making 
rational decisions when it comes to buying.   We buy products simply because we want to 
gain a sense of control. At the same time,   our innate desire to seek instant 
gratification drives us to buy more and more. NARRATOR: How can we resist 
being manipulated into spending? WU: With neuromarketing, we can 
understand how our emotions, feelings,   and intuition shape our buying decisions.Money can 
bring joy, security, excitement, and satisfaction.   At the same time, money can bring worry, 
jealousy, resentment, and anxiety. NARRATOR: And what really drives our need 
to shop? This is Your Brain on Money.   This is Terry Wu. He's a neuroscientist 
and a marketing consultant,   and he wants people to understand the 
irrational forces driving their spending habits. WU: From the evolutionary perspective, 
the human brain evolved to feel first   and think later. The emotional brain is called 
the limbic system. It's responsible for all our   emotions like joy, happiness, anger, fear, 
and anxiety. The rational brain is called   the frontal cortex; it is heavily involved in 
reason and logic.Sometimes these two systems   conflict with each other, and our decisions 
are the results of a complex interaction. NARRATOR: At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 
many Americans stockpiled toilet paper,   but not because it had anything 
to do with keeping them safe. WU: Buying toilet paper was a simple coping 
mechanism for people to deal with their stress.   While under stress, the frontal cortex 
stops functioning at full capacity.   Our emotional brain kicks into a higher 
gear; it overpowers our rational thinking,   we feel like we're losing a sense of control. 
We have difficulty in controlling our impulses   and delay our gratification. We stop making 
rational decisions when it comes to buying. NARRATOR: The miracle of modern abundance 
means more human beings have near-instant   access to affordable products than in any 
other time in the history of the world. WU: With online shopping available 24/7, it's 
very tempting to shop online all the time,   and to seek that instant gratification and to 
seek that instant reward. We think Amazon is in   the retail business, but in reality Amazon 
is in the instant gratification business.   The human brain was not evolved to 
interact with a computer screen,   the human brain was evolved 
to interact with other humans. NARRATOR: Shopping is often easy and cheap. 
It makes sense that human neuropsychology   might not be prepared to effectively navigate 
the constant deluge of social media shopping   ads and one-click
purchase buttons. WU: Many companies subtly use crowd influence 
to nudge us to buy products.Imagine you try to   buy a microphone for your computer. Amazon 
helps you make that decision by showing you   the best sellers, the Amazon's choice, and 
those products that have the highest ratings.   So Amazon pretty much has made that decision 
for you before you even went to Amazon. NARRATOR: We often use credit 
cards when shopping online,   which means there's a disconnect between 
our present self that gets to enjoy the   new item and our future self who 
has to deal with the consequences. WU: Credit card companies and loan companies know 
this very well. They intentionally disconnect the   present self and the future self. When we spend 
money with cash, we can feel that money is leaving   us. This is why spending money with a credit 
card we tend to spend more simply because we   don't feel the pain of paying. Companies wanna 
give us the illusion that we're in control.   When people have a better shopping 
experience, guess what, they buy more. NARRATOR:   It can be difficult to stop spending that's driven 
by the emotional brain, but it's not impossible. WU: The important thing is you create some 
barriers between your desire to shop and   shopping.In the old days, we did not shop every 
day, we shopped maybe once or twice a week.  Designate a day in the week to 
shop. Allow yourself some time   between the moment you think of buying 
something and the time you buy something. NARRATOR: Stress reduction can strengthen 
our ability to resist the shopping impulse.   Terry is a committed runner. It helps 
temper his desire to buy too many books. WU: One way to lower our stress is physical 
activity. Anytime you feel like you're under   stress, instead of going to shop, go outside, 
move your body. When your muscles become relaxed,   your stress level goes down. Another 
way to reduce your stress is to seek   social support. When you're connected with other 
people, you gain a sense of safety. That sense of   safety can blunt your stress response and 
make your frontal cortex function better.   Online shopping has become the predominant 
way for us to buy things in our lives,   but are we going to adapt this in a bad way 
or in a good way? The answer is not clear yet.