Why do I always eat those burgers while shopping

Ever wondered why we always cross a fast food restaurant like McD or KFC at the entrance of shopping malls and couldn’t resist but consume those unhealthy food and sugary drinks. In supermarkets why do you find yourself leaned towards buying those candies stacked up near the billing counters.

A human mind has a very finite pool of mental resources and every difficult task we perform draws from these resources. The depletion rate is more when we have to make decisions. With multiple choices to decide upon the exhaustion rate is much higher. Once these resources get exhausted, our mental energy becomes lower resulting in poor decisions. This is termed as ego depletion in behavioral psychology. Wikipedia definition

Ego depletion refers to the idea that self-control or willpower draw upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired.

After a tiring day at work, you tend to settle down in the couch mindlessly fiddling through those TV channels. This is because your mental energies have been completely exhausted at work and they cannot exert any self-control. Your willpower will not kick in and you resort to the easier option.

Shopping malls have a huge collection of different merchandisers. There are a variety of options and as we enter into the mode of analysing and comparing the different aspects of products we become tired. Unless we are looking for a specific product to buy, wandering through the shops makes the brain lose more energy and we more likely to make impulsive purchases. Thats why we find buying trousers in Levis store easier than in hypermarkets as the choices are very limited in the store.

Now this answers why we end up eating in those fast food restaurants. These restaurants by strategically placing the shops in the entrance/exit, tend to get more patrons who are ego depleted. And if you wade through the traffic to reach such malls, well your mind has already decided to order the fries while you are still parking your vehicle.

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