Another great article from the New York Times - The Voices in My Head Say ‘Buy It!’ Why Argue?

I am fascinated and thrilled to find yet another way to justify my spending habits. Evidently, I have a dopamine addiction, a very responsive nucleus accumbens (I like how that word bears such uncanny similarity to 'succumb', because that is exactly what I do whenever I see a cute coat, bag or pair of shoes) and an incredibly sluggish insula. Given the link between dopamine and shopping habits, maybe I should go to the gym more often in order to improve the health of my bank balance. Exercise releases dopamine, right? Or is that endorphins? Or are they the same thing? Clearly my brain needs a work-out. Or some sleep. I've been staring at my math problem set for the last 4 hours.

I'm sure many of you out there are better at biology than I am! And, since this is, after all, a blog dedicated to university students, I'm sure one or two of you might be interested to read the actual working paper by the behavioral economists at Carnegie Mellon - so you can download a copy of Tightwads and Spendthrifts.

Labels: links, shopping