Brandwashed by Martin Lindstrom

senseless,” and goes on to say that in order to qualify as a true addiction, “the buying behavior causes marked distress, interferes with social functioning, and often results in financial problems.” 7 Based on this widely accepted definition, a Stanford University study estimates that roughly 6 percent of the population, or seventeen million Americans, suffers from a shopping addiction, 8 a condition that, according to the authors of the study, typically coincides with other disorders ranging from mood and anxiety to eating disorders to substance abuse. 9 A more recent study published in the
Journal of Consumer Research
put the prevalence of shopping addiction at a startlingly high 8.9 percent. 10
    Shopping addictions tend to follow the same general patterns as any other addiction, according to experts in the field. First comes anticipation of shopping or buying something, followed by the shopping or buying experience itself, “often described as pleasurable, ecstatic even, and as providing relief from negative feelings,” according to a study carried out by researchers at the University of Richmond and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and published in the
Journal of Consumer Research
. 11 But the relief is fleeting, and ultimately the high wears off and the shopper crashes. Then, like an alcoholic after a binge, he or she is overcome with guilt and remorse before the cycle starts all over again. While psychiatrists aren’t in complete agreement about whether shopping addiction qualifies as a clinical addiction (at the time of writing, the American Psychiatric Association is debating whether to include compulsive shopping in the fifth edition of its mental-health bible, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
), they do agree that compulsive shoppers “use shopping as a way of escaping negative feelings, such as depression, anxiety, boredom, self-critical thoughts, and anger,” 12 and many are prescribing an antidepressant known generically as citalopram and sold in the United States as Celexa to curb uncontrollable shopping urges.
    As we saw in the last chapter, marketing and advertising entreaties that play on emotions like fear, insecurity, and the universal need for acceptance are incredibly persuasive. Well, it turns out that if we’re already predisposed to compulsively shop or buy, their seductive powers become that much more magnified. One four-year-long German study has even found that a critical factor in shopping addiction is the boost of self-esteem shoppers get from interacting with store clerks! “We discovered that shopping addicts get a real kick out of the interaction they have with store personnel. Their fragile egos are given a tremendous boost by sales people who fawn over them and smile and treat them like royalty,” says Astrid Mueller, who wrote the study findings. “Their conscious minds know, of course, that these people only want to make a commission on a sale. But their subconscious minds enjoy being treated as a special somebody.” 13
    So how does shopping addiction—or any addiction, for that matter—start? Again, it all goes back to dopamine, that feel-goodneurotransmitter our brain’s limbic system spurts out to give us a “high” or “rush” so pleasurable that we can’t help but repeat the behavior as soon as the dopamine drops back to normal levels. The catch is, the more we experience the object or behavior of our addiction—whether it’scigarettes, a drink, a drug, or new Manolo Blahnik pumps—the greater a tolerance we build up, meaning we need more and more of the substance or the behavior to get back that dopamine high.
    Dr. Peter Kalivas, chair of physiology and neuroscience at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains that over time, our persistent pursuit of that rush of dopamine can actually change our brains’ DNA (specifically the proteins that control a neurotransmitter known as glutamate) in a way that triggers