Why do we shop more when we pay with cards instead of cash?
Why do we shop more when we pay with cards instead of cash? American neuropsychologists, led by Stanford University professor Brian Knutson, presented subjects with various goods (discs, sweets, books), reported their price, and then asked about the intention to purchase the goods, and magnetic resonance imaging of the brain was performed at each stage. It turned out that the message about the price activated areas of the cerebral cortex associated with the experience of loss and sadness. If the price was too high and the person decided not to buy the thing they liked, the activity of the brain regions associated with the perception of pain increased. Buying is a compromise between the immediate pleasure of owning and reducing the trauma of parting with money, comments Brian Knutson. The card makes the process of parting with money more symbolic and acts as an “anesthesia” when experiencing loss.