David DeSteno has a very good Op-Ed piece on the best ways to avoid excess spending and impulse buying. He argues that willpower often fails because it is a finite resource (cf. Baumeister’s research on self-control as a limited resource, depleted on use discussed here earlier)*. Instead, he says, use feelings of gratitude. He describes an experiment that showed that feeling grateful resulted in more delayed gratification than neutral or positive feelings. Check it out.
Link to the article on nytimes.com
As hokey as it sounds, the solution to the shopping season’s excesses may lie in the very message of Thanksgiving itself.
* Caveat: this research is currently part of a replication project to see how strong the effect is. Stay tuned.
