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17

Retail therapy

www.economist.com

Retail therapy is shopping with the primary purpose of improving the buyer's mood or disposition. Often seen in people during periods of depression or transition, it is normally a short-lived habit. Items purchased during periods of retail therapy are sometimes referred to as "comfort buys." Retail therapy was first used as a term in the 1980s with the first reference being this sentence in the Chicago Tribune of Christmas Eve 1986: "We've become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags & nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy." In 2001, the European Union conducted a study finding that 33% of shoppers surveyed had "high level of addiction to rush or unnecessary consumption." This was causing debt problems for many with the problem being particularly bad in young Scottish people. Researchers at Melbourne University have advocated its classification as a psychological disorder called oniomania or compulsive shopping disorder.

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