Am I buying the right gift?
What happens in our brains when we’re buying gifts.
Finding the perfect gift for a loved one is not easy and requires a lot of thought. Prof. Dr. Louisa Kulke, who was Assistant Professor for Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology at FAU until April 2023 and is now Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Bremen, knows what happens in the human brain when we are shopping for gifts and which areas of the brain are active when we give gifts.
No gift ideas without thought
“The hippocampus is an especially important area of the brain that we activate right at the beginning as it’s where our capacity for remembering is located,” explains Louisa Kulke. “We desperately try to remember whether the recipient has already said something about what they would like or whether they were particularly pleased about a certain gift in the past.” The hippocampus is active again when the gift is unwrapped under the Christmas tree: “After all, we want to remember what the person receiving the gift thinks about it, so that we only have half as much stress the following year.”
Christmas needs some planning
“The frontal lobe of the brain is always active when we need high levels of concentration, or when we are planning or deciding something”, says Louisa Kulke. “This means it is working at full speed while we’re thinking about a particularly nice gift for a loved one.”
Empathy makes gift giving easier
The prefrontal cortex – the foremost part of the frontal lobe – and the temporoparietal junction between the temporal and parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex are primarily used when we control emotional processes.
“Both areas of the brain are responsible for enabling us to put ourselves in the position of the person receiving the gift. We try to guess and anticipate what they would like,” confirms Kulke.
Motor skills and Christmas shopping
The motor cortex and cerebellum are probably going to be underused during the last-minute shopping this year: They control movement sequences and become active when we make our way into the city center and stroll through the pedestrian zone.
Shopping in hunting mode
Almost every one of us has heard of the “fight or flight system” that puts us into fight or flight mode when faced with impending danger, depending on the chances of success. However, this system also kicks into action if there is only one of the coveted toy left in stock at the online shop we’re browsing. “The fight or flight system pushes our adrenalin levels sky high, our muscles become tense and we dash off – whether physically or in front of the screen – to get the longed-for gift,” explains Louisa Kulke. Prof. Kulke does not want to confirm that we are prepared to commit acts of violence during the process, of course.
If the gift is a flop
Then, under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, the anterior cingulate cortex in our brain comes into play. Among other things, this area of the brain controls social evaluation and the feeling when we feel socially excluded or not accepted in a group. “The anterior cingulate cortex is highly active when we are unwrapping gifts under the tree, namely when we find out whether the recipient likes their gift or not,” says Kulke. Let’s hope that in the latter case we won’t be rejected by our loved ones…
Further information
Prof. Dr. Louisa Kulke
neurodevpsychology.phil.fau.de
This article was first published on December 17, 2020.
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