Women love shopping much more than men, which is confirmed today by numerous marketing studies. Psychologists analyze this phenomenon from different positions.
A 2013 survey of 80 Brits found that most men get bored after about twenty-six minutes of shopping, while women feel great after a two-hour shopping marathon. For this reason, 45% of the representatives of the stronger sex call shopping with their half a real test, and XNUMX% flatly refuse such a pastime. Almost half of the joint exits end in quarrels, as men tend to quickly make a choice, while their companions need time and a more thorough acquaintance with the product to make a decision. What lies behind such different behaviors when it comes to shopping? This question was asked by transpersonal psychology researcher Steve Taylor in his book The Fall, where he analyzes works on anthropology and early human history.*
Hunters and gatherers
Until about the eighth thousand years BC, all mankind lived by hunting wild animals – this was done by men, and picking up wild fruits and plants was the prerogative of women. “At the same time, women can rightfully be called the true breadwinners,” says Steve Taylor. “It is assumed that they brought from 80 to 90% of the food, since the diet of our predecessors was predominantly vegetarian – only 10-20% of it was occupied by meat food.” Around the eighth thousand years BC, agriculture and the domestication of animals began to emerge in the Middle East, which gradually spread to Asia and Europe. “It’s no wonder that after so many thousands of years of hunting and gathering, it’s in our blood, referring to our shopping habits,” Taylor says. “And when a woman is shopping, she realizes her former instincts of the “collector”, only the study of trees for the most worthy fruits now turns into a close study of one store after another.” At the same time, men’s shopping habits may be associated with an occupation that has also been preserved in the gene memory – hunting. And this may explain the fact that men are more likely to focus on a single goal: the search for one object in their field of vision and do not tend to deviate from this. Indeed, in prehistoric times, they also had one task: to quickly kill the animal and go home. They did not have to spend a lot of time, like women, neither on long movements in space, nor on inspecting their prey, checking for edibility. They only hunted down the animal, killed it, and immediately delivered it to the hearth. “Perhaps the desire of modern men to leave the store as soon as possible is also based on an ancient instinct: if the hunter left the killed animal for too long, other predators could encroach on it,” Steve Taylor notes. “In addition, the hot and humid climate also did not allow the men to take a break – the prey had to be delivered as quickly as possible to a safe and secluded place.” Anthropologists Daniel Kruger and Dreyson Byker argue for the same animalistic theory of the connection between modern shopping habits and the experience of hunter-gatherers preserved in our genetic code. ** Through a series of experiments in malls, they found that women were significantly more successful in activities associated with leisurely gathering, even though the environment and objects did not match those of our predecessors. At the same time, men scored big points in competitions that were associated with hunting.
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Shopping – two different roads
“The very features of the psychosexual development of men and women are directly reflected in differences in purchasing behavior,” says Jungian analyst Lev Khegai. Girls are brought up to be more social, flexible, suggestible, collective. In the upbringing of boys, independence and individualism are emphasized, up to the assumption of rebelliousness. And for women, going to the store is not only the need to buy something, but also the opportunity to relax and have fun, often to chat with friends. “For men, if they do not have a goal to buy something specific, social dependence on the store and society can be straining,” says Khegay. – If they have a need to buy something, they will do it with perseverance, fully focusing on the goal. Indeed, for men, success and performance are more important, while for women, the process itself is more important. It is no coincidence that, according to statistics, representatives of the stronger half make more purchases on the Internet. According to Lev Khegai, this gives them the opportunity to get all the information about the product and feel their competence, while maintaining the illusion of independence from society. There is a result, but there is no feeling of coercion.
Family therapist Maria Askolskaya draws attention to the fact that joint shopping is in its own way a good psychological lesson aimed at the ability to feel a partner: he is tired, he is not very interested in it now, or, on the contrary, he is passionate and cannot be interrupted. Given the objective gender differences, people have the opportunity to transfer this inner experience to other areas of family life, avoiding the desire to remake a partner for themselves, which is a common cause of quarrels. This turns out to be an opportunity to learn to give each other more mutual freedom, when, while supporting a partner with advice if necessary, no one loses the opportunity to move away and do something else.
* Steve Taylor «The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History and the Dawning of a New Era»
** Daniel Kruger , Dreyson Byker. «Evolved Foraging Psychology Underlies Sex Differences in Shopping Experiences and Behaviors.» Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, Март, 2009