The results of a regular New Year's Eve survey of the population in 2015 were stunning. The consumer spending chart for Christmas gifts has dropped sharply compared to recent years. 63% of those surveyed were going to save on sales and cut spending on Christmas shopping. On average, an ordinary Russian family planned to allocate 17,000 rubles for the New Year's budget, of which 7,000 rubles for gifts to relatives, relatives, friends and acquaintances, 5,000 rubles for New Year's entertainment and shows, and the remaining amount for the festive table. This budget turned out to be a quarter more economical than the previous one.
All kinds of New Year's sales cause annual mass consumer craziness. Who benefits from provoking such a shopaholic madness, despite the serious danger in the fight for discounts on fashionable rags and appliances from popular brands and get injured or even crushed in a maddened crowd? The name of such sales "Black Friday" appeared after 2008, when a thirty-four-year-old employee of the store died under the feet of a brutal crowd at a New Year's sale at the Wall Mart supermarket.
What makes buyers spend money on unnecessary and useless things? Marketers specifically design traps for them, encouraging them to constantly make more and more new purchases, which subsequently usually leads to serious mental disorders and terrible stress. In the future, this behavior of the buyer develops into a mental dependence and can bring a person to schizophrenia. Such behavior is very beneficial for trading companies, because insane demand creates inadequate unlimited consumption. The whole point of marketing is to sell a lot and at a high price, despite the announced discounts.
Since the middle of the last century, in the course of laboratory experiments on rats, scientists Peter Milner and James Olds have made one discovery that concerns the structure of the human brain. They first identified the pleasure-producing region of the brain. Scientists implanted an electrode in the brain of a living rat, through which weak current pulses were fed into its head. So they tried to activate the area of the brain responsible, as they thought, for fear. But the opposite happened during the experiment. The rat was not afraid of these electrical discharges, but seemed to strive to receive them more and more, endlessly pressing the power button of the electric current until it was completely exhausted. Then the experimenters had a hunch that they had stumbled upon a new, previously unexplored center of pleasure.
Later, at the end of the twentieth century, this triggering mechanism was called the "reward and reward system." It is explained by the fact that when the expected reward justifies itself, a message goes from the brain to a living organism in the form of dopamine production. If no reward has been received, dopamine is reduced and signals the brain that reality has diverged from the planned pattern. The brain's reward and reward system has a profound effect on various processes of stimulation, motivation, and learning.
It is the work of this system that is responsible for the manic craving for purchases from shopaholics and, in general, for the formation of all types of addictions in living beings, and, of course, in humans, including. This mechanism is triggered by a special substance called a neurotransmitter or dopamine. These substances circulate in the subcortex of the brain and cause various reactions depending on the situation: depression, fear, addiction, intense pleasure, pleasure. The next phase after the release of dopamine will be the release of adrenaline.
As soon as the experimental (for example, a buyer or consumer of something) sees a bright advertisement and high discounts on a product, dopamine, which had been dormant before, starts working in his brain, orders the person to focus on getting a possible reward or easy money and get it, in order to no matter what. The launched mechanism makes people passionately desire something and act to achieve their goal. This is used by marketers and supermarket sellers on the days of declared discounts for the introduction, promotion and sale of usually sluggishly sold, and even stale products.
Since ancient times, it has been deposited in the human neurophysiological system that when something useful for the body is done, then dopamine begins to be produced in the subcortex of the brain. Taking pleasure in the result of their activities, people again repeated certain actions, which quickly led to the receipt of new pleasure and satisfaction. This is how information was accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation at the gene level about the connection between dopamine production and receiving rewards for some actions.
Promotional video:
Jean Baudrillard was the first to investigate and describe the surprising phenomenon that buyers, knowing in advance that they are being deceived and the promised discounts are just a publicity stunt, still fall into this trap of marketers. It was he who gave the name to this phenomenon “the logic of Santa Claus”, when absolutely unnecessary things are often purchased at sales. But even stronger impact on consumers comes from monopoly trade, using various psychotechnics and an artificially created system over consumption.
All world trade is concentrated in the hands of one hundred and forty-seven families of monopolists. They tightly control the trading market. For example, the richest multi-billionaire from Spain, ranked number one on the Forbes magazine list since October 2015, Amancio Ortega heads the retail corporation that dictates clothing prices around the world. Every day, about one million items are sold in its boutiques and shops in 80 countries of the world. To date, the fortune of Amancio Ortega has exceeded $ 74 billion and continues to grow. But his textile business is completely built on human passion and a system of awards and rewards in the brain of buyers.
Really, shopaholics, like experimental rats with electrodes in their brains, will buy unnecessary goods to the point of stupor. Currently, even a new field of psychology has been developed, the so-called neuromarketing, designed to create reliable ways to manipulate the buyer. Still, the buyer needs to turn on his sanity and, before going to the mall, plan the holiday expenses in advance, setting a certain cost limit for himself.
