Researchers to investigate shopaholics in Copenhagen

Shopping centres in Copenhagen area taking part

Researchers from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) have joined forces with shopping centres in the capital area in order to measure and analyse the reactions of women who are shopping in a bid to learn more about addictive shopping.

Thomas Ramsøy, a neuro-psychologist at CBS and one of the researchers behind the investigation, said that the aim is to uncover when the urge to buy becomes so great the women are unable to leave their money in their purses.

”Shopaholics can be helped via therapy,” Ramsøy told Politiken newspaper. ”We hope the results from the research can be used to improve this treatment.”

The compulsive buying disorder most often strikes women and is a serious addiction that can be compared with gambling addiction.

READ MORE: Number of Danish gambling addicts increasing

300,000 in Denmark?
The participants in the research will be met at entrances to shops and will be fitted with a set of glasses that can register eye movement during shopping. They will also be fitted with small electrodes to their heads that can measure brain activity.

An earlier Danish study showed that the women who can be classified as shopaholics had expanded pupils when they were checking out particularly attractive wares.

There is no clear overview of how many people are shopaholics in Denmark, although the psychiatric fund Psykiatrifonden roughly estimate the figure to be 300,000 people.

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