Time to part with the money, honey

She arrives at the mall feeling depressed. The designer-shoe store beckons with its latest offerings. After trying on a few pairs, she walks out feeling elated with her purchase. A few minutes later, she wonders whatever possessed her to buy something she can barely afford. It should have brought her joy, so why is she more depressed than before? What she is unaware of is that her hormones played havoc and left her distressed over her extravagant acquisition.

Women love shopping. Period. And thanks to Professor Karen Pine from the University of Hertfordshire, we now know that women tend to shop more at certain times of the month. Window-shopping, indulgent sprees or budgeted spending are common among women. Besides shopping, going to the mall improves a bad day for many women. Retail therapy apparently offers a significant refuge from surging hormones, albeit temporarily. Feelings of guilt usually take over once the initial elation wears off.

During the study headed by Pine, psychologists "discovered" the link between female hormonal changes and shopping trends. She says women shop based on what stage they are at in their menstrual cycles. And pre-menstrual stress creates an urge to indulge. Women are more prone to impulsive buying a week before their cycle.

According to a strange finding, women's spending patterns drop during ovulation. Dubbed the "ornamentation effect" by researchers, it fuels a woman's desire to look good. But the study did not find women shopping more during that phase.

The prize for silly research, however, goes to the Manchester Metropolitan University study funded by the Manchester Arndale Shopping Centre, which said shoppers are led by instincts acquired from their Neanderthal ancestors. The study concluded, following a rise in the number of shoppers during January, that women chose to shop in the warmth of the mall as a throwback to the time our ancestors kept warm by the fires in front of their caves.

If you find it difficult to blame your shopping excesses on your Neanderthal ancestors, you can try blaming the credit-card bill on "that time of the month". So now the poor husband not only has to deal with a highly emotional wife, he also has to pay for it.

— Andrea Bailey is a UAE-based freelance writer