When It's More Than an Urge

[Guest guest]

The Scientist.com

Volume 18 | Issue 3 | 64 | Feb. 16, 2004

When It's More Than an Urge

For the compulsive, the phrase

By Pray

Would popping daily citaloprams, I wonder, have restrained Jackie

Kennedy's celebrated spending sprees and prevented the purported ensuing

marital discord? How about a fluvoxamine prescription? Or natrexone? And

what about publisher Randolph Hearst who, at the peak of his

purchasing power in the 1920s, spent $15 million a year? Even after

achieving near bankruptcy, Hearst continued feeding his mania for

antiquities, tapestries, oriental rugs, paintings, and other

collectibles. Would meddling with a remedy to restore what some consider

a chemical imbalance in the brain have tempered the nearly (some would

say definitively) self-destructive shopaholic behavior of this 20th

century tycoon?

We'll never know. But some day, psychiatrists may know enough to

begin prescribing drugs to treat so-called compulsive shopping disorder,

a condition that affects millions of Americans. After all, the rich and

famous aren't the only ones who spend, spend, and continue to spend,

even as their compulsion leads to substantial financial, marital, or

familial ruin. Recall the Seattle suburbanite who embezzled more than

$3.7 million from Starbucks to fund her 32-car collection and a house

crammed with Barbie dolls, grand pianos, and more? The majority of

shopaholics may not steal, but they do buy until their lives fall apart.

Not all psychiatrists believe that the pathological acquisition of

objects is a valid, independent disorder unattributable to something

else, such as depression. But some, like University of Iowa's

Black, say there's no question it exists. Rather, the issue is, where's

the line drawn between normal and compulsive shopping? Excessive

spending itself is not problematic; only when it has destructive

consequences does it become a disorder. Black, who's treated shopaholics

for years and is writing a self-help book aptly titled Buy This Book,

suspects that some 10% of pathological shoppers may be genetically

programmed to do what they do--maybe not to buy, but to be compulsive.

My question is, why do people shop at all? I don't need to run

through a list of clinical criteria to know that I don't need Black's

help. If anything, I have an aversion to compulsive shopping. Sometimes,

when the mood strikes, the cash is handy, and I am not looking for the

" perfect " item, I enjoy shopping. But other times, when the perfect item

eludes me while I'm braving holiday spenders en masse, shopping becomes

an anxious, frustrating, exhausting use of time. Gift-hunting aside,

when I'm tired, standing in front of a supermarket freezer eyeing some

30-plus different types of frozen pizzas, the urgency to pick the

perfect pizza can practically immobilize me. Why?

Do I shop to achieve, to make the best decision, and get the best

deal? Many men seem to shop that way, according to studies cited in

Byrne Paquet's new book, The Urge to Splurge: A Social History of

Shopping.1 At least for me, I have a feeling it's more involved than

that. There's certainly more to buying than the fact that we've always

done it, an admittedly " naïvely simplistic " theory that Paquet favors.

People have shopped for as long as markets have fueled empires, she

says. Even the modern shopping mall has precursors dating to 1600 B.C.

Mesopotamia.

According to Paquet, some theorists say we shop to foster

relationships and build and strengthen social networks, particularly

with loved ones. Even shopping for nonfat milk instead of whole milk can

be construed as an act of love, something done to keep one's family

healthier. Not being a sociologist, I won't venture into what love is,

but altruism is a well-studied biological trait in many animal taxa. And

while I generally disdain frivolous evolutionary rationale for human

behavior, I can't resist. Might shopping be, to some degree, a

genetically evolved altruistic act performed for the good of the group?

Maybe insects have the answers. After all, just about every male

bug offers a juicy piece of prey or other delectable to his mate before

or during copulation. They may not frequent malls or supermarkets, but

insects (and other animals) have to shop for those tasty nuptial gifts

somewhere.

A decade ago, wisdom had it that these nuptial gifts were goodwill

acts, sacrifices the male made for the sake of his offspring. But

biologists now think the opposite: The gifts are selfish acts by the

male to acquire or prolong copulation, says evolutionary biologist Göran

Arnqvist, University of Uppsala, Sweden, who studies the gift-giving

phenomena in insects. Arnqvuist, demonstrating sagacity, won't speculate

on the biological basis of gift giving in humans.

But I will. I like the idea that finding the perfect item reveals

my desire to strengthen the loving ties that bind me to the gift's

recipient. If so, does this mean that compulsive shopping disorder is

caused by love-binding ties that have gone awry? Could love have

restrained Jackie Kennedy?

Pray (lpray@...) is a freelance writer in Holyoke,

Mass.

1. L.B. Paquet, The Urge to Splurge: A Social History of Shopping,

ECW Press: Ontario, Canada, 2003.

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org