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The benefits of retail therapy: Making purchase decisions reduces residual sadness
Author(s) -
Rick Scott I.,
Pereira Beatriz,
Burson Katherine A.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2013.12.004
Subject(s) - sadness , anger , situational ethics , psychology , feeling , resentment , control (management) , social psychology , sense of control , affect (linguistics) , cognitive psychology , computer science , communication , law , political science , artificial intelligence , politics
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.