Hypothesis: When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping

[ewt]

When the human is under stress it will seek solutions to that stress.

Historically, at least where relevant in evolutionary terms, physical resource scarcity has been a big source of stress. I mean, there are other things that affect whether you pass your genes on, but all other things being equal, the person with more physical resources will survive Bad Things (illness, calamitous drought/famine, attack by neighbouring tribes, blah blah blah) better than the person with fewer of them. (I could go further and say 'stress' is what happens to us when we encounter patterns that are threatening to our survival on some level, but perhaps there are much better definitions out there.)

It has historically been easier or more cost-effective to generally increase physical resources than to increase skills (certainly once into adulthood) or try to predict What Will Go Wrong.

When we get stressed, we try to get more stuff. We're more likely to try to get more stuff than try to get more money, because money is sortof abstract, it's all numbers and little cards and paper and metal that aren't intrinsically useful, while stuff is rather concrete.

The problem is that in Western society today, most of us have LOADS of stuff, and some non-traditional stressors (lack of exercise anyone?). Some of us still have a strong automatic "get stressed, acquire more stuff" response... but this neither alleviates the stress nor particularly ensures we can survive better than the next guy when things get even more stressful. I mean, you can only hoard so much food before it really isn't going to make a big difference one way or another, because in a really really bad situation you only own what you can carry and defend.

I think maybe also, our brains only hold so much catalogue data. After one has a certain amount of stuff (and of course this will be different for everyone), it becomes difficult to keep track of. Some people get around this by being very organised with a place for everything and everything in its place, some people get around it by not having much stuff (either because they've got the "get stressed, acquire more stuff" thing licked, or because they acquire non-tangible goods such as entertainment), and some people live in a hell of a mess most of the time and end up buying more underwear because they lost track of washing the last lot and half of it is under the bed.

Is this making sense? I'm clearly talking out my ass and haven't organised my thoughts on this, but figured I'd throw it out there anyway.

Comments

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

My last two digital cameras (compact ones, not my SLR) were stress purchases.

I was having a bad day each time and decided to buy a new camera.

[mwana-isimu.livejournal.com]

When I am stressed, I feel no need whatsoever to go out and acquire more stuff. I do, however, want to eat, which I suppose could be interpreted as a way to prepare for the next famine.

I think that most of the "wanting to acquire more stuff" comes from this message bombarding us CONSTANTLY, day in and day out, in advertisements. We barely watch any TV, but when we do, I definitely notice more of what's out there and available, and over time, it definitely makes you want things you absolutely don't need. I think most people would be much happier with the stuff they already have if they weren't constantly being reminded of what they *could* have.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I do, however, want to eat, which I suppose could be interpreted as a way to prepare for the next famine.

Certainly the endorphin response is there because those who had an endorphin response to eating food passed their genes on more often than those who didn't, and eating food when you can is adaptive in a society faced with recurrent famine. So yes, I'd say that according to the model I'm talking about, eating in response to stress could be a famine-preparation adaptation.

I think that most of the "wanting to acquire more stuff" comes from this message bombarding us CONSTANTLY, day in and day out, in advertisements.

Perhaps stress makes people more susceptible to those messages.

Hmm. I watch no TV at all, don't want most of the things advertised in the magazines I do read (New Scientist, Private Eye, er... that's it), and don't regularly read a newspaper (I do the cryptic crossword in thelondonpaper, but I always skip straight to it without reading anything else). I don't get a lot of internet advertising exposure, either; google text ads and those fucking annoying Facebook sidebars are about the extent of it.

I do see lots of adverts on the Tube. I don't notice that I feel particularly drawn to purchasing the things in the adverts. Also my exposure to the adverts is fairly constant; I travel nearly every day. Possibly I'm atypical enough in my tastes that targeted advertising doesn't work well on me.

I do notice that I spend more when stressed, though, and have to be very careful not to go shopping in my 'spare' time.

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

When I'm stressed, my typical response is to hide away from the world. Since my main cause of stress at the moment is my failure to meet new people who are nice, this is a remarkably inappropriate response!

Perhaps there are several inappropriate stress responses that people use? Other people's comments have already pointed out eating; hiding could at some point have been useful but isn't now; likewise hoarding. I'm sure there are others.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Perhaps there are several inappropriate stress responses that people use?

I think this is likely.

I think possibly it is important to understand why a now-inappropriate response was at one point a useful adaptation.

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

I think possibly it is important to understand why a now-inappropriate response was at one point a useful adaptation.

I think this is reasonably obvious for several of them: hoarding, eating, hiding, being angry or violent, running...

Things like self-harm are a lot less obvious. Any suggestions?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think it's not particularly irrational and instinctive. Once you try it once, you associate it with endorphins and all that jazz, and the barrier is allowing yourself to be convinced that its short term gain of emotional relief exceeds the long term disadvantage of having visible evidence that you were once that upset.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Forgot to finish the comment, fool.

So, I think starting to do it is purely logical and human and not a matter of evolutionary psychology, but continuing to do it is more relevant.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I think of it as the opposite, in a way; I don't understand starting (just like I don't really understand why people start smoking), but continuing is a fairly straightforward endorphin addiction problem (or in the case of cigarettes, nicotine addiction).

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think what you said is exactly what I meant, and I probably didn't explain it properly. Continuing is straightforward; starting involves being persuaded* to believe a bunch of fairly unlikely abstract reasoning that shows it to be the right decision.

*whether by yourself or somebody else

[juliet]

continuing is a fairly straightforward endorphin addiction problem (or in the case of cigarettes, nicotine addiction).

Neither SI nor cigarettes are straightforward addiction problems. Otherwise quitting would be much easier, for a start.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Straightforward and easy to quit are not the same thing; I had no intention of trivialising the difficulty of quitting either. On the face of it saving money and getting out of debt are fairly simple in terms of the overall concepts, but still difficult for many people.

Perhaps 'understandable' would have been a better word than 'straightforward'. I'm not sure.

[juliet]

They're simply not, either of them, only about physical addiction. There's a whole stack of emotional need-satisfaction, automaticity, and social programming in there as well. Nicotine addiction plays a part with smokers, certainly, but only a part. I'm not sure that "endorphin addiction" is very useful at all when talking about SI. Certainly the physical endorphin kick is one aspect, but that's not the same as "addiction".

Understandable *in general*, sure, but not understandable simply as a physical addiction, in either case.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Is physical addiction ever only about physical addiction?

[liv]

Self-harm isn't new. In the old days it was called something different; there are loads of historical records of, for example, teenage girls inflicting stigmata on themselves. Or people being "possessed by the devil" to scratch or cut their own bodies. And there's the whole phenomenon of flagellism; it might have a religious excuse, but basically it's a form of self-harm. Fairly obviously there has always been suicide.

And I'd be very surprised if the prevalence of it is any lower in your generation than among younger people; I bet you anything that the older generation just hide it more or are more ashamed of it. Gen Y are really "let it all hang out" and believe in telling the whole world about their psychoses. But that doesn't mean older people were saner, just they keep quieter about it when they're broken.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I have somehow lost almost all of my interest in shopping and ownership of shinies since the nervous breakdown; I have tried to regain it but its come back only partly. I do feel rewarded and better when I have found something I like, though.

Maybe shopping is an easy way to trigger "i have acheived something today" response in your own brain?

Maybe stress makes us more vulnerable to the advertising messages?

[qadira.livejournal.com]

Makes sense to me. I always know when I'm extra stressed because I start feeling like I need to buy extra food, and put lots of food in storage, and I feel like I don't have enough food, and preparing meals is crippling because I don't want to use my "not enough food". When in reality, we generally have enough food to eat for a couple of months (even if it wouldn't necessarily be varied or have complete well-rounded nutrition).

And I do this with other things too. I can bring home books with infinitely more ease than I can get rid of books.

And I have a couple thousand skeins of DMC floss because I am paranoid society will collapse and then how would I get thread for my stitching and my stitching is part of my sanity, so AUGH. And...

um. yeah. I have a strong hoarding/pack-rat tendency, and a stress-reaction is definitely getting more Stuff. And it doesn't help when I look at the economy and the environment and politics and so on, and start thinking "hm, well I should learn this, or prepare for that".

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

It sounds entirely plausible to me. My therapist defines stress as an orange alert state where full fight or flight response is red - the state people are in when something is vaguely wrong and needs keeping a sharp eye on, like there is a pride of lions over there or the volcano you live on is making worrying noises recently.

Stress

[(Anonymous)]

And why do we call stuff shit?
Is that a preparatory descriptor preparing us for getting rid of it?

Re: Stress

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Could be.

[yaqub.livejournal.com]

I go both ways. I either want to buy stuff, or I get rid of things. It's during times of stress that I go through extreme clean out phases, and start throwing away things. Sometimes things I've been hanging on to for ages. It's like preparing to run away - and thus, the need to be less encumbered.

On the other hand, I'm a completist collector, and when you add that to something like collectible miniatures gaming, it gets bad. It means wanting to buy everything in that range, or at least everything of the faction you've picked. Which then gets aggravated further in times of stress, thus more buying. Luckily, there's only four games like that I'm interested in, and for most of those I already have everything I could want. Makes it easier to keep up. :oP