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Subscribe to RSSMake your post-Thanksgiving food coma work for you: New research suggests that eating a big turkey dinner may keep you from spending impulsively on holiday sales.
The study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Marketing, builds on the turkey-tryptophan trope that we all hear this time of year -- it's practically guaranteed that somebody at your Thanksgiving gathering will say,"Did you guys know that turkey makes you sleepy?" That's only kind of true -- an amino acid called tryptophan is found in turkey, and it does work as a natural sedative, but we really don't eat enough of it, even at Thanksgiving, to be affected. Our after-dinner lethargy is more likely caused by overindulging on delicious carbs and cocktails.
But the body uses tryptophan to produce serotonin, and serotonin is known to inhibit impulsive behavior, which made researchers from the University of Utah curious: How might Thanksgiving dinner affect Black Friday binge buying?
To find out, they recruited 170 volunteers and instructed them to fill out an online survey on Thanksgiving evening in 2007. They rated how likely they were to buy popular items at a deep discount -- such as a Dell laptop marked down to $499. Those who had consumed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner were less likely to splurge on any of the marked-down items, say Arul Mishra and Himanshu Mishra, the University of Utah marketing professors that co-authored the study. (Fun fact: They're also husband and wife.)
Of course, as Himanshu Mishra points out, "The influences are not going to be there after 12 hours. If someone is going out shopping tomorrow morning, probably the person will not see that effect." So here's how to make these new findings work for your wallet: Either skip the shopping on Friday and do your holiday shopping online Thursday night, or load up on leftovers before heading out to the stores on Friday.
Would you give this a try? Or is impulse shopping on Black Friday half the fun?
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Leave a Comment:
SO WHAT........WTF is wrong with the news media in this country! There MUST be some HAPPY story to put out in the news to day to help people feel at least a LITTLE WARM AND FUZZY on THANKSGIVING DAY!
FRIGGIN IDIOTS!
For heaven's sake. Thanksgiving has nothing to do with shopping! (Despite many retailers attempts to make it so.) Let's enjoy and give thanks for our friends and family and whatever possessions we already have.
...and your overwhelmingly positive attitude is REALLY HELPING??? Mr. "dam tired of this..SO WHAT...WTF" .... the warm and fuzzy feeling you want comes from within you NO MATTER WHAT NEWS STORY is read by you or printed by "them" .. so take your own advice and spread the love not negativity... PEACE OUT BRUTHA LOVE!!! Happy Thanksgiving man.. you are loved by someone, and that should be enough...if it's not, then smoke a joint of some kind bud and chill the @!$%# out :-))))
I buy what I want If..and when I want it. That's all. No frills about that...! For larger purchases I think about it overnight first. Sometimes I even do that with small ones. No, I am buy no means a miser. But sales pitches do not get to me, either.
"consume, get fat, spend, don't think"... who's the turkey-the bird we ate at the table or the American on the couch?
i like thanksgiving because i can mooch and get a free meal from my family and Friends and get lots to take home and i do not have to cook or clean my mint never used kitchen stove .no one in my house spilling drinks on my pure white carpets and using my bathrooms i have five of them . that is all for me not for them .so i eat for free and mess up there house because my house is super clean and mint . its all about me .i eat out every day so my house smells clean and like new . i heat up the leftovers outside by my pool and eat there also so the smell of food stays outside. as for the shopping i get whatever i want because i can .
We're talking about willingness to buy a sharply marked-down item - does that really characterize Black Friday binge buying?
And... if there's an undesirable behavior, there are many ways to tackle it - eating yourself into a stupor so you won't do it, doesn't really sound like the best option.
msnbc.com needs a little icon to put next to links that are going to lead to really stupid articles. What a waste of web-server space.
Someone actually spent time and money doing a garbage study like this ? To what purpose ? Wonder who funded it.
Seems almost like American's have forgotten what Thanksgiving is all about. Of course there's after holiday sales and black fridays and midnight madness. Thats part of the commercial aspects of the holidays. Things are meant to be researched and studied.
Every studious / mad scientist person has a method to their madness. For the Media? It's entertaining and a way to get things about. I just enjoy the little things I find out and go . Gee .. you know I have often wondered about that. Or .. Wow .. Now that explains it! I'm not crazy after all!! Or in my case .. AH HA! PROOF! *does the little I told you so dance*
*chuckles* That's why it's called Body ODD .. <--- ODDITIES! Stories out of the norm! So Writers and reporters! Kudos for the good work and giving us something to enjoy instead of constant doom gloom end of the world situations!