Can science explain why I love shopping?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you've ever felt the urge to shop till you drop, then you may already know about some of the clever ways retailers convince us to consume. From flash sales to so-called unbelievable offers, there are a whole range of techniques aimed at encouraging us to flash the cash. Listener Mo works in marketing, so knows more than most about the tricks of the trade - but he wants CrowdScience to investigate how neuroscience is being used to measure our behaviour and predict what we’ll buy. Marnie Chesterton finds out how brain scans are being used to discover which specific aspect of an advertisement a person is responding to, and then she hears how this information is being used by companies who want to sell us more stuff. But there's also evidence to suggest we have less control over these decisions than we think, and that computers are getting closer to detecting our intention before we're even aware of it ourselves. And this could have huge implications for the way we shop.
Presented by: Marnie Chesterton Produced by: Marijke Peters
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello and welcome to crowd science. I'm Marnie Chesterton. This is the show that takes |
| 0:46.6 | your science questions and travels the world looking for answers. Currently we're |
| 0:51.5 | not traveling anywhere. |
| 0:53.0 | We're recording during the coronavirus crisis and people in London are stocking up in case they're confined to their homes. |
| 0:59.0 | I'm in my local supermarket, which is impressively empty. |
| 1:03.0 | This is really bizarre, all the bread is empty, |
| 1:11.0 | empty, but it's making me want to buy whatever's left I'm not |
| 1:15.9 | panic buying obviously any flour any flour any flour no no flour but whilst I'm |
| 1:21.9 | here okay crisps whilst I'm here. Okay, |
| 1:23.0 | Crisp. |
| 1:24.0 | So what I'm going to go, please. |
| 1:26.0 | There are different stages when it comes to making decisions. |
| 1:29.0 | The first stage is you need to know what you're actually seeing, what is out there. |
| 1:34.0 | Other crisps are available. |
| 1:37.0 | So let's say you're standing in a supermarket. |
| 1:40.0 | There's cherry, there's line. |
... |
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