Emotional Consumerism – The Threat of the Future

Ms. Roshan was walking out of the mall with her basket full. The basket was filled with many consumer products. Each product was looking like a timely representation of her brain, because she should have either applied her logic or her passion for making these purchases. I could realize that each of the products in the basket had an emotional tag. 

Markets today play on the emotions of the buyers. Either through advertisement or through other strategies, emotions of the people are flagged, and intensive exercises are undertaken to repeat those strategic emotional inputs so that brain networks are rewired frequently and a strong desire is created to buy, possess or associate with that product. Says Patrick Dickson in his book “The Future of Almost Everything” -. If we wish to explore the future, we need to look at how people are likely to FEEL… as well as what they will ‘THINK’. The single word that will drive the future is EMOTION.” 

The presence of the product or the desire for its acquisition pushes the hormone flow to the extent a kind of restlessness is created in their behaviour. Every small opportunity to realise this dream, shoots their anxiety level and manifests into visible or unconscious stress. The acquisition of the product appears to give them a sense of self-esteem, though short-lived. It entails satisfaction and thus a sense of achievement. The pleasure or the pain centre in the brain works closely with this emotional design. The suggestion of pleasure, either real or virtual, by the brain triggers future opportunities of seeking such utilities that bring home the sense of pleasure. The person falls a victim to an inexplicable addiction. The consumer feels glorified every time they achieve their utilities. The inability to frequently satisfy this urge for pleasure drives one mad. Consumerism has had yet another victim at its doors. 

Psychologists and Neuroscientists have done adequate research in seeking answers for extensive consumerist attitudes. Producers and advertisers have taken enough advantage of these attributes of the psychological behaviour of human beings to explore and explode the markets. Several focused practices like “Sale, Bargains, Discounts, Freebies, Gifts and the like” are used as effective instruments to play the game

“Buy one – Get one Free”; “Three for the cost of Two”; “One kilo of Tomato or Brinjal if you buy one sari”; “Aadi sales”; “Akshaya Tritiya sales”; “Annual Clearance Sales” and so on.

Several ways to touch and ignite the emotions are put in place and all these have certainly attracted crowds and boosted the sale. The strategy to play with emotions are also used to enhance the TRP levels of shows, performances and the panel discussions in Media. 

“Emotionally Competent Stimuli” psychologists say are effective tools to impact human learning, raise intense and hardwired brain networks and for establishing long term memories. No wonder, brands are established through effective emotional networks. In creating such networks, a lot of triggers which impact the right brain activities like music, dance, inputs that have an impacting aesthetic value or visual and verbal/non-verbal triggers that fire imagination, love, are invested so that an overdose of these right brain sensitivities help in defeating any logical debate in the brain, and to create false or fake belief systems. 

Mass consumerist triggers are also used so that competitions are set at the individual level to demonstrate and parade one’s ability to be a frontrunner in satiating these consumerist requirements. Exercises in developing social status through competitive consumption are articulated successfully and no wonder one could see people in large numbers standing in beelines to acquire the products. In most such cases, more than the quality or the relevance of the product, imageries created with possession of such products radiate a classism and people with such products develop their own tribe. Psychologists could explain these behaviours based on the significant role of Mirror Neurons in the brain that also facilitate social intelligence, social equity and acceptance. 

Given the large scale unabated consumerist trends, one could witness these psychological challenges percolating down to the formative years. The members of the formative age group of the current society have already become victims such consumerist behaviours. Changing fashions and outlays of the products, the producers market them with a few more energized words and visuals that disrupts the consistency in consumer behaviour and sets in new purchase trends. In short, there is a design in ushering a continuous emotional inadequacy among people both at the individual level and at the societal level. Given the fact, the pleasure centres in the brain are waiting for newer gateways to quench their thirst for recognition, they succumb to a ‘wow’ sentiment that is communicated through market forces.

While no society would discourage creativity, innovation, change, technology and better facilitated modes of living practices, it is indeed unfortunate that market forces have short term goals of realizing greater profits at shorter intervals of time and thus explore and explode the markets, whether or not it is healthy enough for a society.

If one could look at the trend more closely, one may see that there is a paradigm shift from consumption of products and services to the consumptions of emotions themselves. In other words, we are moving from a generation of material consumers to emotional consumers, possibly leading to a pre-maturation of experiences and emotions. Several mismatches that arise due to such pre-maturing lifestyles and experiences, appear to create restlessness, stress, impulsivity, aggression and in a few corridors violence too. The expectation for a few hundreds of “likes” for a selfie communicated through whats app in nanoseconds is the beginning of an anxiety neurosis and its non-fulfilment is a seed enough for a sense of self-defeat and low esteem.

It appears important that both schools and families need to take cognizance of these emerging trends and take appropriate steps both formally and informally to deal with the situation in a pragmatic manner so that our younger generation does not become victims of psychological inadequacies and disorders. 

Prevention is better than cure.