Sad and introspective? Don't go shopping

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Glum shoppers hoping to boost their self-esteem with a bout of 'retail therapy' will spend more for the same item and come to regret the purchase, a new study showed Friday. According to a study released at the annual meeting of the Society for Social and Personality Psychology, inward-looking people who are down in the dumps tend to spend more money on the same item than their neutral-emotion counterparts.

Earlier studies have drawn a link between mood and spending habits, but this one highlighted the key role played by how self-focussed a person is.

"It is the combination of sadness and self-focus that drives the effect, and it turns out that sadness leads to an increase in self-focus," said Cynthia Cryder, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon...