We’ve all felt the rush of clicking ‘buy’ on a shirt or a pair of jeans that we hope will fit just right. When an article of clothing that you bought online gets delivered, or when you’re browsing the aisles and stumble upon the perfect sweater, you probably feel an exciting mix of joy and anticipation.
This rush comes from the production of ‘happy chemicals’ in your brain, like dopamine and serotonin. These chemicals are made when you’re doing something that makes you happy, like dancing, eating good food, or, yes, shopping!
But what exactly makes shopping for clothes such a dopamine hit?
Glad you asked because we’ll be discussing:
- How the brain releases feel good chemicals to reward the shopping experience
- Why shopping in particular can release dopamine
- How too much shopping can have a detrimental impact on the environment (and your wallet)
The Chemistry of Pleasure
How dopamine is made
When you’re doing an activity that you find pleasurable, your brain releases dopamine. This chemical plays a role in motivation and forming reward systems. When you buy clothes at a store or online, and feel that initial dopamine hit, that’s your brain giving you a reward. And that happy rush is what you start to crave, and so you buy more clothes, which releases more dopamine, which then dissipates, leading you to shop again. Effectively, dopamine creates a cycle where you are motivated to do something, to claim the reward of pleasure.
But it is not just the act of buying something. A study by neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky shows that dopamine is actually released in anticipation of the reward, and ends when one gets it. When we are waiting for clothes to come in the mail there is more dopamine being released than if we buy them right there in the store.
This leads consumers to engage in things like ‘retail therapy,’ buying something to make themselves feel better. Customers seek out instant gratification, where they can buy something at the touch of a button.
There are a few reasons why clothes shopping seems to scratch that dopamine itch:
- Visualization— When we buy clothes we can imagine ourselves looking good in them. Following trends on social media can influence the kind of fashion consumers buy. Buying clothes that you think will make you look nice will help fire off those feel-good chemicals like dopamine.
- Rationalization— Buying clothes can help reinforce a sense of control over your life. It can emphasize a feeling of personal autonomy that releases dopamine when you purchase items.
- Social— Shopping in person at stores can heighten your mood because physical activities like walking releases dopamine. Shopping as a social activity can also release dopamine, and it is a good opportunity for people to spend time with others. Furthermore, the act of shopping can be a happy distraction from other, more stressful things happening in your life.
People enjoy having the novelty of new clothes. Once a consumer receives an article of clothing in the mail, for instance, the anticipation is over and they release much less dopamine. This, in part, leads to consumers prioritizing cheaper clothing, so that they can buy higher volumes of clothing, and therefore more novelty.
Fast Fashion, and its Consequences
The Cost of Convenience
In the digital age, it is easier than ever to buy clothes online, making it far easier to seek out dopamine, and the need to keep buying new clothes is only exacerbated by things like social media.
Fast fashion is clothing produced and sold cheaply, made to be worn only a couple of times. The dopamine release of ‘retail therapy’ and online shopping form an unhappy marriage. Because it is so easy, and so cheap, to buy these kinds of clothes, there is a whole industry surrounding clothes made to be bought and then forgotten about.
76% of Americans prefer shopping for clothes online, and outlets like SHEIN, which specialize in fast fashion, add thousands of new styles to their platform everyday.
Fast fashion outlets take advantage of social media to market their clothes aggressively. Flooding your feed, either through their own advertisements or through sponsored content made by influencers, fast fashion brands can reach a wide audience of potential shoppers.
The ubiquity of new clothes on social media contributes to a sense of FOMO, or “Fear of Missing Out.” There are many consumers who feel uncomfortable wearing the same outfit more than a couple of times, or wearing clothes that are deemed out of style.
Consumers can buy cheap clothes that they see marketed by trendy influencers, and can feel in the fashionable loop, leading to a dopamine hit when they buy the clothes and are anticipating its arrival.
The price of these types of clothes is what makes them attractive for retail therapy. While it might be easy for the consumer to rationalize paying for these clothes, there is a hidden cost to the mass production of fast fashion.
- 2%-8% of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from the manufacturing of clothes.
- 35% of all ocean microplastics come from washing clothes that contain synthetic materials.
- 150 million trees are cut down for rayon or other synthetic materials every year.
While fast fashion is very affordable, and makes many consumers happy because of the variety and volume of different styles, it can also be a little irresponsible— especially if one buys clothes in exorbitant amounts, only to wear them once.
How Clothes are Being Marketed
The fashion industry uses sales and discounts as a marketing tool. There are around four sales that happen each year, though fashion brands will often have more than that, as well as discounts. These sales are enacted seasonally, and meant to entice consumers to buy more, like having a discount on bathing suits for the summer or parkas during the winter. What’s more, consumer’s are encouraged to buy immediately due to ‘seasonal collections’ that create a sense of urgency.
Companies will offer sales for their clothes in an effort to attract new customers, who are motivated to buy on sale to feel like they are getting a deal. Consumers enjoy buying things on sale because, not only are they buying clothes, they are doing so at an ostensibly opportune time. Sales are usually seasonal, based on the current weather.
Buy manufacturing scarcity, that a sale will only be on for a limited time, fashion companies motivate consumers to go shopping as soon as possible, and shoppers will take advantage of the sale because they know it will end.
The limited-time deal works differently online vs in person. Online, websites can take advantage of digital tools like countdown timers to try and accentuate the time-scarceness. However, as more and more people are shopping online, consumers are growing wise to these more overt strategies, and will more often take advantage of sales that happen because of a holiday, for instance, instead of a random time on a random day.
There is also a difference between these time-scarceness deals, and volume-scarceness deals. In the latter, discounts and sales are promoted because companies need to move products that might be underselling, or are from last season. Because the consumer is more attracted to new clothes, companies can use sales and limited-time offers to offload articles that normally someone would pass over.
Other Methods for Releasing Dopamine
While shopping incessantly to feel better can be problematic, it is possible to
engage in retail therapy without going overboard. Shopping sustainably and moderately is a great way to release dopamine without contributing to landfills or buying products wastefully.
There are also other ways to release dopamine that don’t involve shopping. Dopamine is released whenever you are doing something fulfilling or that you enjoy. When you are doing something that improves your own survival, like eating a really good meal, dopamine levels rise.
Baking is a good replacement for online shopping because it is something that people find fulfilling, once you finish baking you get a reward, a baked good, and it involves the same anticipation that people get when they shop for clothes online.
One could take part in similar activities that involve some form of anticipation, like gardening, knitting, or even playing video games.
Buying clothes releases dopamine because people can use fashion to control how they appear and how they feel, and the anticipation of buying clothes leads consumers to enjoy shopping. Once the novelty wears off, however, people shop more to feel something good again. In some cases this behavior leads to waste, so it is important to have other avenues to explore and to derive enjoyment from.
