The Dopamine - Impulse Buy link

cogno64 writes "Certain stimuli in the brain, such as the smell of freshly based cookies, lead to higher levels of dopamine that remain after the stimulus is removed, leading to altered behavior through interaction with learning, memory, and executive function. The experiencer is more likely to make a purchase decision based on their heightened dopamine levels, with significant impact for internet marketers. According to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting today, the neurotransmitter dopamine continues to be released for nearly an hour after neurons are stimulated, suggesting the existence of secondary mechanisms that allow for sustained availability of dopamine in different regions of the brain including areas critical for memory consolidation, drug induced plasticity and maintaining active networks during working memory. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with learning and memory, motor control, reward perception and executive functions such as working memory, behavioral flexibility and decision making. When a novel or salient stimulus occurs, the dopamine neurons in the brain increase their firing rate, boosting the release of dopamine. The dopamine is diffused into the extracellular space of the brain until it can be transported or metabolized."

Comments

Re:Freshly Based Cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You mean you've never freebased freshly baked chocolate chip cookies?

Introducing "Smelzak"

[bkeeler]

...from the same great folks that brought you "Muzak". Step into the elevator and the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls is chemically synthesized and fed into the vents. By the time you arrive in the department store you'll already be reaching for your wallet!

Oh, crap!

[Rob T Firefly]

But I always eat cookies when browsing Slashdot... hey, that explains the huge pile of overhyped LED keyboards, novelty mice, Futurama DVDs, Phantom lapboards, and iPod accesories in my office!

Re:Oh, crap!

[nizo]

And we see yet another reason to browse with cookies turned off.

Serotonin

[RAMMS EIN]

Now if they could only come up with a product that resulted in increased serotonin levels, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

(Serotonin is involved in depression and anxiety disorders.)

Be aware of subversive marketing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

and you won't ever be a victim of impulse buying. For example, whenever I go to a mall and I smell freshly baked bread, I always remind myself that it's a synthesized flavor in a can that one of the employee periodically sprays around the entrance (go to a bread or cookie shop in a mall, I guarantee you there's no equipment there that can produce real freshly baked bread smells). Same for car dealership: it's very well known that they spray "new car scents" inside the car, even in second hand cars.

Same for things for sale that look too clean or too well kept: I always try to picture the thing with normal everyday-use dirt on it before buying. Cars come to mind, they're never dirty when the salesman shows them to you.

So my rule of thumbs is: if it suddenly smells good in odd places where those smells shouldn't be, or if I see things that look too good, I automatically go into "beware of impulse buying mode".

Re:Be aware of subversive marketing

[tuffy]

Someone should let car dealers know that "new car smell" is terrible and that it makes me nauseous.

The "new car smell" is simply a side effect of all the plastics involved in its construction airing out. It doesn't really come in a can.

Re:Be aware of subversive marketing

[quag7]

This is actually key - and not just subversive marketing but marketing in general. My own mental habit when watching television - and this is automatic; I couldn't *stop* thinking this way - is to sort of "remote view" the conversations in the advertising agency, and then reduce the commercial down to its essential elements:

"Lifestyle. If I don't own this, I'm not cool."

"Buy this and it will get me laid." (I salute the various body spray ads using this technique so nakedly, it was probably considered risky when first proposed - it's one thing to subtly add sexual imagery to commercials - it's another to just make a naked claim that a product will get you laid. And it's worked. Which says very little for the modern 18-24 year old male, frankly.)

Then I picture the imagery the agency decides on, the song choice, and how it was conceived, laboratory style, to try to manipulate me.

I apply the same mental circuits to religion, ideology, and so on.

When this mental process becomes automatic, the desire to consume drops significantly because it generally makes me feel somewhat insulted - the usually cheap, manipulative nature of advertising and so on. Even great advertising is pretty bad if you break it down to its calculated, constituent parts.

As Rosco P. Coltrane (how's Flash doing btw?) mentions, it's increasingly necessary to be aware of these things whenever you expose yourself to any kind of retail environment, for the reasons he lists.

Lastly, avoid retail environments altogether unless you specifically want to buy a certain product.

It's hard for me to get wound up about consumer culture because it really requires only a few easily-learned habits to innoculate yourself against it. Like anyone else, I buy products, but I research, especially higher-end items, to the point of analysis paralysis, before putting my money down. I take a shopping list with me to the supermarket.

Sheriff Little of Chickasaw county agrees, btw.

The smell of bread or cookies or whatever, will probably initially cause this thought: "mmmm cookies."

The immediate second thought should be, "How cheap and insulting."

Ummmm you have lots of choices

[BitterAndDrunk]

That's the whole point of Paxil, Prozac, and Wellbutrin I believe.

IANAD but they're all called "seratonin uptake inhibitors" and the gist is they stop your brain from reabsorbing seratonin and therefore increasing the constant level found in your brain.

If you want to get really wacky, you can take MDMA (ecstasy) and have ALL of your seratonin flood into the brain at once, getting tracers, a "bulletproof" feeling, and (to quote Ali G) the desire to dance like a prick.

Finally, a more reliable way to increase your seratonin levels is through eating right and daily exercise. I'd lean much more heavily on this method rather than any sort of drug for this, as messing with the brain directly is a bit. . . ponderous. Lots of side effects from Paxil/Prozac/et al and they're ALL addictive. Even when they say they're not. Paxil claimed to be non-addictive for a while, and it was on the market for over 2 years before the drugco went "oops, looks like it is addictive! Our bad! But look at its profitability!"

Legalized drug dealers, indeed.

Re:Ummmm you have lots of choices

[RAMMS EIN]

``That's the whole point of Paxil, Prozac, and Wellbutrin I believe. ...

Finally, a more reliable way to increase your seratonin levels is through eating right and daily exercise.''

Yes, and sunlight, certain foods (nuts, live vegetables, and sweet things, I believe), therapy, and, most importantly, talking to people!

The problem with all these things besides the drugs is that, when you're depressed, it can be hard to do anything at all, including the things that improve your situation.

Re:Ummmm you have lots of choices

[plcurechax]

Finally, a more reliable way to increase your seratonin levels is through eating right and daily exercise.''

In healthy, unstressed people.

Be careful how this statement is read, there is no evidence that depression is brought on by a poor diet or lack of exercise, and I don't know if an occurance of depression is considered less likely through diet and exercise (it is not 100% preventable by diet and exercise alone).

Re:Ummmm you have lots of choices

[curunir]

Paxil and Prozac are SSRIs, Wellbutrin is not. Wellbutrin targets norepinephrine which is why it can, in a slightly different formulation, treat smoking addiction (that formulation is sold under the name Zyban). And, just to be pedantic, it's "Selective Seratonin Reupdake Inhibitors"...

However none of these drugs, MDMA/MDA included, result in more seratonin, they only change the way your brain deals with the seratonin you have. If you want to have more seratonin, the dietary suppliment 5-HTP is your best shot. However, this will only work for people who's bodies aren't producing enough seratonin to begin with.

As to their addictiveness, yes, they have withdrawl symptoms, but those can be mitigated by titrating off the drug slowly. However, in the vast majority of the cases, they do not have any of the other properties of addiction that make it hard for the patient to stop using them. I'm not sure why so many people insist on demonizing the pharmaceutical companies that make anti-depressants. Are they perfect? Not even close. But have they helped people overall? I've met too many people who've basically reclaimed their lives because of these drugs. There's a lot that needs fixing in this country when it comes to both prescription and illgal drugs. But a one-sided view on either is just plain wrong. Both types of drugs, if used correctly can have very positive outcomes. And if the government would pull its head out of its ass for long enough to allow scientists to study the effect of MDMA on the human brain (and I mean real studies, not the Recaurte crap they currently fund), we might learn something about how our brain really uses all these neurotransmitters we have. For example, wouldn't it make sense to commission studies on why MDMA has the effect it does on Parkinsons' patients? (in case you don't want to look it up...the symptoms basically go away for the duration of the high).

We're at a critical juncture when it comes to learning about how the brain works. What we need now is a lot of unbiased research into how the brain works and reacts to these substances that we've come up with (and will come up with). Unfortunately, uninformed opinions (like the one espoused by the post I'm replying to), politics and huge pharmaceutical profits are and will continue to get in the way of this.

Great...

[plate_o_shrimp]

After hammering me with loud TV and radio ads, assaulting my eyeballs with garish print and web ads, flooding my inbox with email ads, and littering the landscape with signs and billboards, the marketers have come up with another to try to make me buy crap I don't want. I'm pretty good at resisting, but damn I get tired of this crap in my face all day long. Just go away, dammit! :-)

Re:Freshly Based Cookies

[Reziac]

An AC says, "What? You mean you've never freebased freshly baked chocolate chip cookies?"

Certainly I have! Easiest method is to just eat all the dough without bothering to bake it. :)

Go ahead

[surfcow]

Go ahead. Click that moderate button. You know you want to.