And MORE FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Why Shopping Makes You Feel So Good!

Tara Parker-Pope

When Wazhma Samizay and her friends have a bad day, they go shopping, a ritual dubbed "retail therapy."

"When you are shopping to buy a gift or get something for yourself, either way it's kind of a treat," says Samizay, who three years ago opened a Seattle boutique named Retail Therapy. "The concept of the store was about finding things that made people feel good."

Science is now discovering what Samizay and many consumers have known all along: Shopping makes you feel good. A growing body of brain research shows how shopping activates key areas of the brain, boosting our mood and making us feel better - at least for a little while. Peering into a decorated holiday window or finding a hard-to-find toy appears to tap into the brain's reward center, triggering the release of brain chemicals that give you a "shopping high." Understanding the way your brain responds to shopping can help you make sense of the highs and lows of holiday shopping, avoid buyer's remorse and lower your risk for overspending.

Much of the joy of holiday shopping can be traced to the brain chemical dopamine. Dopamine plays a crucial role in our mental and physical health. The brains of people with Parkinson's disease, for instance, contain almost no dopamine. Dopamine also plays a role in drug use and other addictive behaviors. Dopamine is associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, and it's released when we experience something new, exciting or challenging. And for many people, shopping is all those things.

"You're seeing things you haven't seen; you're trying on clothes you haven't tried on before," says Gregory Berns, an Emory University neuroscientist and author of "Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment."

University of Kentucky researchers in 1995 studied rats exploring unfamiliar compartments in their cages - the laboratory equivalent of discovering a new store at the mall. When a rat explored a new place, dopamine surged in its brain's reward center. The study offers a warning about shopping in new stores or while out of town. People tend to make more extraneous purchases when they shop outside their own communities, says Indiana University professor Ruth Engs, who studies shopping addiction.

But MRI studies of brain activity suggest that surges in dopamine levels are linked much more with anticipation of an experience rather than the actual experience - which may explain why people get so much pleasure out of window-shopping or hunting for bargains.

Dopamine can cause someone to get caught up in the shopping moment and make bad decisions. Dr. Berns of Emory says dopamine may help explain why someone buys shoes they never wear. "You see the shoes and get this burst of dopamine," says Dr. Berns. Dopamine, he says, "motivates you to seal the deal and buy them. It's like a fuel injector for action, but once they're bought it's almost a let down."

Dr. Berns and his colleagues have devised studies to simulate novel experiences to better understand when and why the brain releases dopamine. In one set of studies volunteers reclined in an MRI scanner while a tube trickled drops of water or sweet Kool-Aid into their mouths. Sometimes the Kool-Aid drops were a predictable pattern, while other studies used random drops. Notably, when the Kool-Aid was predictable the brain showed little increased activity. But the scans showed a high level of activity when the Kool-Aid was given at random. This indicates that the anticipation of the reward - whether it's Kool-Aid or a new dress - is what gets our dopamine pumping.

Because the shopping experience can't be replicated inside an MRI scanner, other researchers are using electroencephalogram, or EEG, monitors that measure electrical activity in the brain to better understand consumer-shopping habits. Britain's Neuroco, a London consulting firm, uses portable monitors, strapped on to shoppers, to produce "brain maps" as a way to understand consumer buying habits. The brain maps show a marked difference in the brain patterns of someone just browsing compared with a consumer about to make a purchase.

"Shopping is enormously rewarding to us," says David Lewis, a neuroscientist and director of research and development. But Lewis also notes that stressful holiday crowds, poor service or the realization that you've spent too much can quickly eliminate the feel-good effects of shopping.

Knowing that shopping triggers real changes in our brain can help you make better shopping decisions and not overspend while in a dopamine-induced high. For instance, walking away from a purchase you want and returning the next day will eliminate the novelty of the situation and help you make a more clear-headed decision.

Dr. Engs of Indiana has compiled a list of dos and don'ts to help people make better shopping decisions. Although the steps are aimed at people with compulsive shopping problems, they are useful for anyone caught up in the holiday shopping frenzy.

WHERE DID MALLS COME FROM ANYWAY?

Some SHOPPING History: 

The word mall is old English, and refers to strip of green grass where a croquet-like game called Pall-Mall was played. Pall-Mall was a 17th-century game in which a boxwood ball was struck with a mallet to drive it through an iron ring suspended at the end of an alley.  

The word Pall-Mall came from the old French pallemaille, derived from Italian pallamaglio, and was a combination of palla (of Germanic origin), meaning ball + maglio, (from the Latin malleus) meaning mallet. 

After World War II, shopping malls (outdoor strips of shops) sprang up around the United States.

In 1956, Austrian born architect, Victor Gruen, set out to create a mall for Southdale, near Minneapolis, Minnesota where the weather is often extremely cold or hot.  His solution: an enclosed mall for protection from the weather.   Gruen's vision emphasized the need to create a  city center, a modern agora (the town squares of ancient Greece) that could serve social, cultural and civic purposes as well as facilitate commerce. 

By the late 70’s hundreds of malls, open and enclosed, had been constructed across America and through out the world.   

And don’t listen to the typecasting that guys don’t like to shop.  It may be a myth that women perpetuate. Men are the original primeval hunters.  Shopping is second nature to us gentlemen!!

-- Andy Gilchrist