The benefits of retail therapy: Making purchase decisions reduces residual sadness

People often shop when feeling sad, but whether and why shopping reduces residual (lingering) sadness remains an open question. Sadness is strongly associated with a sense that situational forces control the outcomes in one's life, and thus we theorized that the choices inherent in shopping may...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of consumer psychology 2014-07, Vol.24 (3), p.373-380
Main Authors: Rick, Scott I., Pereira, Beatriz, Burson, Katherine A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anger
Appraisal tendency theory
Decision-making
Perception
Personal control
Research Report
Retail therapy
Sadness
Shopping
Shops
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Summary:People often shop when feeling sad, but whether and why shopping reduces residual (lingering) sadness remains an open question. Sadness is strongly associated with a sense that situational forces control the outcomes in one's life, and thus we theorized that the choices inherent in shopping may restore personal control over one's environment and reduce residual sadness. Three experiments provided support for our hypothesis. Making shopping choices helped to alleviate sadness whether they were hypothetical (Experiment 1) or real (Experiment 2). In addition, all experiments found support for the underlying mechanism of personal control restoration. Notably, the benefits of restored personal control over one's environment do not generalize to anger (Experiments 2 and 3), because anger is associated with a sense that other people (rather than situational forces) are likely to cause negative outcomes, and these appraisals are not ameliorated by restoring personal control over one's environment.
ISSN:1057-7408
1532-7663
DOI:10.1016/j.jcps.2013.12.004