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Sleep deprivation will drive you to consume a wider variety of products. Marketing researchers from the University of British Columbia’s business school draw this conclusion from several studies of buying patterns as a function of sleepiness.

Their experiments included artificial situations such as choosing candy bars on more or less sleep and a look at the consumption patterns of some 60,000 American households whose occupants lost sleep with the shift to daylight savings time. Their shopping is quantitated in the Nielsen consumer panel data set. I guess Nielsen watches more than our TV viewing habits.

The results from the various experiments told similar stories. We human consumers tend to crave variety when we’re tired. It seems that the search for new products or a variety of the same product helps to stimulate our brains and keep us awake. It’s shopping as the ultimate form of self-stimulation.

It’s not rocket science to conclude that the search for variety will ultimately lead to more consumption than is probably necessary. If you want to avoid impulse buying and the ingestion of unwanted calories, avoiding supermarket expeditions and culinary adventures when you are half in the bag or completely exhausted.

Zhongqiang (Tak) Huang, Yitian (Sky) Liang, Charles B. Weinberg, Gerald J. Gorn. The Sleepy Consumer and Variety Seeking. Journal of Marketing Research, 2019; 002224371881133 DOI: 10.1177/0022243718811334

#shopping #dining #consumer #sleep #sleepdeprivation

The Sleepier You Are, The More You Tend to Buy

Dr. Howard Smith Reports