The Christmas of me
Behavioural science expert Dan Monheit, co-founder of creative agency Hardhat writes that thanks to a hell of a year, Christmas has come early, as Aussies look to treat themselves before Boxing Day.
Typically, Christmas has been the season of getting your give on. By the time 25 December rolls around, we’ve all spent days, weeks or months, ploughing time, energy and emotion into finding the perfect gift for everyone else. This year, however, after months of deprivation and drudgery, we’ve seen a subtle psychological shift known as the Licensing Effect, come into play earlier than usual.
Psychologically, we work on an internalised virtues based bargaining system. In Behavioural Science, the heuristic is known as the Licensing Effect, and it captures our innate desire to want to balance out our virtuous and indulgent selves.
It’s why we tell ourselves it’s okay to slather mayo on our lunchtime sandwich if we sweated buckets at the gym in the morning, why sinking a bottle of shiraz feels justified after a stressful day at work or why ‘just one more pair’ of sneakers seems like a reasonable reward for months of diligent saving for a house deposit. The Licensing Effect is best captured by the ‘Treat Yo Self!’ catch cry, and easiest to spot in its ‘because I did X, I deserve Y’ format.
