Need a new excuse to justify your shopping habits? We've found the perfect one, and you can use it again and again (and again). If the next Net-A-Porter sale date is etched on your brain but you struggle to remember your boyfriend's birthday, or if you regard a 70% off price tag as a perfectly justifiable reason to buy shoes that are three sizes too small, you can blame it on your parents.
Mark Ellwood, author of new tome Bargain Fever claims "a passion for finding bargains is genetically preprogrammed in all humans, although it's activated much more in some than others." So there.
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In an essay for
Time
, Ellwood says that "spotting special offers triggers a release of dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter that I like to think of as buyagra." Ellwood's so-called "buyagra"is so powerful that our brains have evolved to develop a built-in system that gets rid of it as quickly as possible—otherwise known was buyer's remorse.
While most of us "can flush our brains free of dopamine with the efficiency of a Dyson", one in four of people have an "iffy COMT gene", which although harmless in every other respect, means that when lured to the sale rail they "can brandish only a hand broom." In other words — the dropped-crotch skinny pants and yeti boots that lurk in the depths of your closet? Totally not your fault.
(Telegraph)
Photo: Via The Telegraph
