• Are Shopping Sprees Related to Hormones?

  Posted Thursday, April 02, 2009 8:54 AM | By Meghan O'Rourke
  
  
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  A new study conducted of 443 women in Britain found they were more likely to indulge in an "impulse buy" and to "overspend" during the days leading up to their period. As this BBC News story puts it, "Almost two-thirds of the 153 women studied who were in the later stages of their menstrual cycle—known as the luteal phase —admitted they had bought something on an impulse and more than half said they had overspent by more than £25." The psychologist leading the study, Karen Pine, speculates that buying is often emotional. Hmm, really? I haven't read the study yet, so I can't tell how scientific it is. But if there is anything to it, it points to just how complicated budgeting in a time of real belt-tightening is. For years, economists acted as though spending were based on rational ideas about value; behavioral economists have shown that the way people actually make decisions seems to have much more to do with psychology. Are psychologists now going to say hormones at the root of everything? If so, should women all go on the pill for the duration of the recession? Maybe it really is time for the government to make the pill available right next to the Advil.
  
  Filed under: Recession Trends, birth control pills, spending habits
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