This Is Your Brain On Holiday Shopping

When you're shopping, you're the subject of a multi-pronged sensory campaign.

Published on December 6, 2012 by Kit Yarrow, Ph.D. in The Why Behind the Buy

As evolved human beings, we’re rational, in-control shoppers. We weigh costs with benefits, compare prices, and never buy on impulse or more than what we need. Right?
In the past 20 years I’ve interviewed hundreds of shoppers — and I’ve yet to find one immune to (at least occasional) emotional or impulsive purchasing.
A peek in the recesses of our closet and cabinets is proof of our fallibility. Who among us hasn’t thought to themselves, “what was I thinking when I bought that?”

Read more at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-why-behind-the-buy/201212/is-your-brain-holiday-shopping

Positive Psychology given credence by Academia:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Commentators on the subject Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, note that:

"The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).

At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom.

At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,tolerance, and work ethic."