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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Is there a relation between sad/depressed emotional state and buying behavior?

There is definitely a correlation between pain perception and buying behavior.

This has been documented in a study done by Carnegie Mellon: https://www.cmu.edu/homepage/practical/2007/winter/spending-... (spoiler alert: cash 'hurts more' to spend -- credit cards 'hurt much less')

I'm sure that there is a correlation between emotion and the ability to perceive / numb pain -- so there probably (at least) an indirect correlation between emotion and buying behavior.

I wonder if that will hold as people use cash less often... if you grow up only using credit cards and have no association with paper money having value, will this study no longer be true? Most adults at the time the study was done probably were still using cash for most purchases for most of their life, making that association stronger.

An excellent question. I only have anecdotal evidence to indicate that it continues to hold up. (My family and I continue to use cash for many purchases. I'm a man in my 40's)

My anecdotal evidence is the opposite... I have basically used credit cards for 95% of purchases the last 5-10 years, and cash feels like 'extra' money to me now... since it doesn't show up in my tracking systems, I don't really see where it is going... I don't have to ever look at the spend again after I buy something, so it induces less guilt... I feel like I want to get rid of the cash in my wallet, because it is 'wasted' in my wallet.

I think that problem is a non-linear one. I'm pretty sure that it's not possible to predict the behavioral outcomes from the reactions of emotional states. The science only goes so far as to provide a proof that it's possible to polarize sentiment by identifying the community bridge in a network. That bridge would be the user that has optimal influence in both groups.

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