How to Protect Your Weak Pavlovian Brain From Impulse Purchases
While most people associate credit cards with temptation and cost overruns, new research offers evidence that your brain provides a sense of reward that is much more active when shopping with plastic than with cash. In fact, research results show that regular credit card purchases actually drive spending, which is another reason to rethink our own credit card habits.
Blame our weak, Pavlovian brains
Participants in the study had their brains scanned and were shown dozens of everyday goods and asked if they would buy each product at the stated price using their own money, whether it was cash or credit cards. The results are consistent with other empirical studies that have shown that people are more willing to buy goods at a higher price for plastic rather than cash.
While the study results are by no means conclusive (sample size is small and constant, and amounts are capped at $ 50), the study’s findings support the hypothesis that the brain learns to anticipate the pleasure of credit card purchases after multiple credit card purchases over time. … (According to the study’s own unique formulation, we are “chronically susceptible due to prior credit card experience”).
This is consistent with other studies that have shown that dopamine pleasure arises from expectation of reward, not just actual reward.
Interestingly, the study also shows that the expectation of reward increased when participants were faced with buy signals, such as the Visa and Mastercard logos, which the WSJ suggests have implications for digital spending:
This suggests that consumers can be trained to spend using different sensory rewards in new payment systems … For example, with digital payments, using certain sounds or vibrations on your smartphone when you make some purchases but cannot do others, teach more time your brain anticipate rewards for buying certain items while shopping.
How to make your credit card purchases less profitable
It’s not always easy to resist impulse buying, but understanding your spending habits is essential. If you have an established pattern in the way you shop, try skipping that routine for a while and see if it has any effect. Some suggestions include:
- Establish a general rule of 24 hours for potential purchases as you see fit (personally, I swear by this rule – it mostly works).
- Remove auto-saved credit card numbers from the browser. Instructions for most browsers can be found here.
- Keep track of your checking account, use debit cards for custom purchases, and leave your credit card at home.
- Do not use applications that play for money. The most famous example would be the exploding confetti on every successful Robinhood trade (the company recently discontinued support for this feature ).
- And stick to a set budget, but include a fixed amount for discretionary spending (since you’re more likely to follow a realistic budget).