Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Mind
We humans can so easily give in to our vices. Something as simple as a credit card can weaken self-control. The good news is that the reverse is also true: cash can buffer us from indulgence. So says a study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Scientists analyzed people’s perceptions of various food types and found that foods considered unhealthy were also seen as more likely to be impulse buys. The researchers then followed the grocery shopping habits of 1,000 households over six months. They found that people bought a larger proportion of unhealthy and impulsive food choices (think: jelly doughnuts) when they used their credit or debit card versus cash.
Desire that leads to impulsive behavior is caused by so-called "visceral factors," like the anticipation of the pleasure of eating the doughnut. And so the author's note that desire might be weakened by aversive visceral factors, like pain. Other studies have found that paying with cash was more painful that tossing over the credit card.
So the pain of cash payment seemed to actually control buyers’ impulses. Seems like the craving to eat a Napoleon can be topped by the desire to hold on to your Benjamins.
—Christie Nicholson
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add CommentThs is great great advice. It's too bad that Corporate America wants to eliminate cash as a payment option. Strangely, some brick-and-mortar businesses no longer accept cash!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCorporations exist to extract your money from our wallets. They know this article is accurate, i.e., we spend more on credit, which is why they it so easy to access and use. There is huge money to be made in credit card transactions and the resulting credit balances. Given those motivations, printed money may well disappear in the future.
I find it very curious that these studies reportedly produce identical results for credit and debit card use, since their is no fiduciary distinction between using a debit card and withdrawing cash to use for purchases.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the identical results using a plastic card of apparently any type rather than counting out cash for purchases is most indicative of the cause of this effect.
Perhaps the phrase "it's only money" should be replaced with "it's only plastic."
Some 20 years ago, a friend, professor of economics, told me the easiest way to keep your budget was to withdraw the cash you could afford to spend the coming month, put it in envelopes, Food, fun, gazoline, etc., and when you see there is not much money left, you naturally get quite stingy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExactly what our grandparents did, it works like a charm, even today!
The solution would be the Tamagotchi credit/debit card. Some of us remember that little electronic Tamagotchi pet that needed feeding and care. If you neglect it then the thing would cry and eventually die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo something like that with credit and debit cards. Make it frown and or even cry when you spend money. Going broke? It cries loudly, moans, and sheds graphic little tears. Have pity on it. Put money in your account. Then it will smile again.
Could it be that, deep down in our still so playfully neotenous primates' brain, our credit cards should range under virtual 'card games'?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSmelly bank notes, on the other hand, are more personal, 'in-hand', and have to be collected more like 'fruits' of our labour, whether from employers, or bank teller machines; they are literally quite a 'handful' to hold and to have, until we opt to part with them for a 'give & take', i.e. bartering, transaction.
Any nicely domesticated chimp like Kanzi would understand: you want 'tit for tat', no less, nor more!
there's no such word "aversive" in my ten dictionaries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this