Buyer’s remorse is the feeling of regret and anxiety that often follows a large purchase, especially if it was made outside of one’s means or at the wrong time. It can also manifest as guilt or concern about others’ perceptions. Psychologically, it is a state of cognitive dissonance where the desire for control clashes with the reality of limiting options.
Buyer’s remorse is the term given to the feeling that a person usually has after making a large purchase. Although excited at the time of purchase, once they have spent a lot of money, many people feel deep regret and worry that they made the wrong decision.
Buyer’s remorse takes many different forms, most of them characterized by a high level of anxiety, usually about having made the wrong decision. Sometimes it happens when a person makes a purchase that he really didn’t have the money or credit for, and after buying it he begins to realize that he was living well outside his means, and concern begins to grow over the consequences. This is especially true of purchases like buying a new home, which is one of the most common triggers for buyer’s remorse, due in large part to the huge amounts of money usually involved.
This sentiment can also center around concerns that a purchase was made at the wrong time and that by waiting you might get a better deal. This is especially common in the technology sector and in automobiles, where new generations of products are regularly launched. A person can make a purchase and immediately start wishing they had waited for the next generation to come out, as their product will soon be out of date. This kind of buyer’s remorse is largely unfounded, as the same case can be made at any time as new generations are constantly being rolled out. However, it is especially prevalent when a new generation of a product is immediately released, leading the buyer to wish they had waited a week or two before committing to a purchase.
Buyer’s remorse can also express itself as extreme guilt over the act of purchase itself. Especially with people who may have a problem with binge drinking, after making a purchase they may begin to regret succumbing to an addiction again. This can also manifest as a concern about how your purchases will be viewed by others, especially if they can easily be seen as frivolous or poor judgment.
Psychologically, buyer’s remorse makes perfect sense. A consumer switches from one state to another when he makes a purchase, where the state before the purchase has a huge positive influence, and the purchase afterward loses a lot of that. Before making a purchase, the buyer is faced with a myriad of choices, giving them a sense of agency and power in the world. They have money or credit to spend and can exert their dominance over the market by leveraging their purchasing power.
After the purchase, however, all the options have disappeared. Buyer’s remorse can set in when they are caught up in only one decision, which may or may not have been the best one, and seek to reduce their purchasing power. No longer acting from a position of control, many people react by trying to distance themselves from the act of buying, to reaffirm their feeling of having had a wide range of options. Buyer’s remorse is thus seen as a very simple state of cognitive dissonance, where the desire to retain complete control and infinite possibilities clashes with the reality of exercising that control by limiting those possibilities.
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