Our personality affects the decisions we make, including how we shop. And as we know, Black Friday is going to be different this year. Those changes, along with having certain types of personalities, may not help our wallets.
Being impulsive can lead people to make quick decisions and buy things without really thinking about it. And now that a lot of these Black Friday deals are online, it can trigger that impulsiveness, partly because we're not physically handing money over to someone.
“When there’s no cash involved and there’s no real exchange like that, it’s just kind of like this single swipe, that really makes it a lot of harder to engage that part of our brain that help us make that decision in the best way for us,” said Dr. Michael Vilensky, a psychologist at Ohio State University’s Wexler Medical Center.
The stress we're all feeling this year can also be a trigger. You might have family members who are sick, maybe you lost your job, and maybe you're stressed just because you haven't seen your family in a while and won't be able to during the holidays.
Psychologists say we may resort to shopping to feel like we have some kind of control.
“If it does feel like shopping is a way to manage difficult emotions, think of some other strategies that may be a way to do that. If it’s talking to a friend. If it’s doing some other kind of relaxing activities or stress reduction activities,” said Vilensky.
In addition to this, one thing we can do to control our shopping is getting rid of apps that have a single swipe or single tap payment option.
If you know you'll be shopping online, give yourself 24 hours to think about a purchase before you pay for it. That'll help you think about whether you really need or want it.
