Retail therapy can come from pet companionship wellbeing.
Retail therapy can come from human wellbeing gained through cat and/or dog companionship. - MikeB interpretation of the study
The finding as stated in the title to this article, comes from a Japanese study. The basic process, as I understand it, is that when you live with a pet, a companion animal, it enhances your life and so you feel better and when you feel better it can induce the desire to spend money in the form of retail therapy which makes you feel better as well.
It seems to me that this is a triggering process. When you feel better because of your companion animal's presence, you seek more pleasure. And you achieve that by buying something in a shop.
pet ownership—subjective well-being—impulsive purchases.
In the words of the study authors led by Yahui Liu, "Pet ownership evokes consumers to shop more, buy more products, and spend more money" and "The pet ownership effect is induced by individuals’ enhanced subjective well-being associated with owning a pet, further increasing pet owners’ impulsive hedonic purchases."
They concluded that the emotional support provided through pet ownership - and we mean cats and dogs - "positively affects consumers' subjective well-being, thus leading to more increased purchases".
I think it's a kind of mild addiction. Addiction to feeling good. We all want to feel good and we cuddle our cat or play with our dog and we feel good. In feeling good you want to find other ways to feel good so you decide to go and buy something in a shop which gives you instant gratification.
That's my interpretation reading the highlights to the study is published on the Science Direct website; specifically the Journal of Business Research. This is the link to the study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114838
The objective of the study was to "estimate the effect of pet ownership on consumers' purchases". And, as mentioned, they found "that pet ownership increases purchases". The effect is "induced by enhanced subjective well-being". This boosts "impulsive hedonic purchases".
They say they are the first to "empirically examine how pet ownership affects consumer purchases". I can agree with that because I've never read a study or a report which connects pet ownership with retail therapy as I would call it.
Retail therapy is very common in the world. The desire to spend money to possess a new item to give a short term increase in pleasure. It's very similar to pleasure eating. Another potential form of addiction.
The study summary says that their findings "offer valuable implications for retailers are incorporating pets into marketing". That's a good point. I believe what they're saying there is that you can include companion animals into advertising of products to enhance the advert.
This is a quick note and a cross-post. I am a little irritated by the news media who have recently written about a Tennessee kitten with "four ears". There's lots of excitement within the news media about this. They like anatomical curiosities. It's a bit like the Victorian voyeurism of freaks at freak shows.
Four eared cats have two ears and four ear flaps. Image: MikeB
But they get it wrong. When a cat has "four ears" they actually have four ear flaps - the bit that we see and which captures sound - but internally they have two middle ears and two inner ears. In other words they have two ears but they have for ear flaps, one extra which is normally much smaller than the original one due to a genetic mutation about which the scientists don't know anything almost because this is quite a rare condition.
That's the picture. I wanted to correct what the newspapers are saying. Because they almost blindly shout from the rooftops that this cat has four ears when he does not. He has two ears because the word "ear" describes the entire anatomy including the ear flap, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
In another act of misrepresentation I would argue, they have called this ginger tabby and white cat with a long face and large ear flaps (possible Oriental Shorter genes somewhere in the) "Audio". That's the opposite to what he should be called because 'audio' means producing sound whereas ear flaps capture sound. Another anomaly!
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
So why are they doing this? It's because they are reactionary. Nearly all British judges come from the middle, middle/upper, upper classes in the UK. They are excellently educated. They go to the best schools and they go to Eton or Harrow after which they go to Oxford or Cambridge.
They become very successful barristers and KCs. They earn lots of money but if they want to become a judge they will have to accept less money but they enjoy the status of becoming a High Court judge or better. They receive a knighthood when they become a High Court judge.
They have high status. But they are part of the establishment. They are firmly part of the British establishment. And I believe a lot of them do not actually believe in climate change. A lot of people in the establishment in Britain don't firmly believe in climate change. They don't want their way of life altered which helps them to not believe in climate change. Their life is too good. They don't want anything upsetting them or their lifestyle. Climate change does negatively impact their lifestyle or will do for future generations.
And so because they want things to remain as they are, they don't like protesters who upset their way of life and tell them that things are going to get worse unless strong action is taken. And if they do have the temerity to upset their way of life in protesting they hammer them as hard as they can and issue overly zealous prison sentences for peaceful protests.
Another judge has done the same thing. He is judge Shane Collery KC (Kings Counsel). He sentenced George Simonson and Theresa Higginson to 2 years in jail apiece. Other protesters he's jailed for 22 months and 20 months. They pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing a public nuisance after they caused mass destruction by climbing gantries on the M25 motorway on November 9, 2022.
The judge said that the protesters were blasé about what they did. He thought the protests were a "curious way of seeking to influence the public opinion."
He added that "[You] considered you knew better than everyone else". Well, I'm gonna say that they do know better than everybody else and they have the courage to scream it from the rooftops. And it is judges like Shane Collery KC who don't understand what's going on. And if we could look back retrospectively in 50 years time at this judgement I think we would all agree that he was terribly wrong.
That's because in 50 years time time global warming will be impacting the planet far worse than it is now and people at that future time will understand how brave these protesters were in providing the public with a warning for the catastrophe to come.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
Olympics boxing is broke thanks to woke. I am sensitive to gender issues but this has gone wrong. Please read the information provided carefully. Update: Khelif won gold! 😒😢
There is uproar and the controversy about the recent boxing match at the Paris Olympics between Imane Khelif of Algeria and Angela Carini of Italy. Carini threw in the towel i.e. gave up, after 46 seconds of the bout because she had been hit by two punches that were the hardest that she has ever felt and caused her extreme pain, she said.
She stopped to protect herself from possible long-term injury. In effect she was surviving, saving her life because she instinctively felt that she was in danger of suffering a serious injury. And in the past, in boxing matches between men, there have been some serious brain injuries so it reminds us that boxing is a dangerous sport.
And due credit to her; for listening to her instincts. But the uproar comes about because Imane Khelif, with the deepest respect, it looks like a man and biologically, according to the International Boxing Association (IBA) she is a man because when they were in charge they conducted DNA tests which showed that Imane Khelif had "XY chromosomes and were thus excluded". They also refer to another boxer with XY chromosomes. Typically, biological sex is determined by chromosomes:
XX chromosomes usually indicate a female.
XY chromosomes usually indicate a male.
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This section is important as it explains a lot. And it is useful in understand what is going on.
Update: The Times Saturday August 2024.This newspaper adds some useful information to this debate. The IOC, the organisation which vets and approves boxers in the Olympics, removed a reference from Kehlif's official profile yesterday saying that "her elevated levels of testosterone failed to meet the eligibility". Comment: it appears that online there was evidence, more evidence, that Imane Khelif was ineligible for the boxing match and shouldn't have been there.
What is more useful, to me, is Janice Turner's comment in the same paper. She has some useful information about the Algerian boxer's gender and DNA. She states that "two controversial boxes at these games, Imane Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, have a DSD. This stands for "difference of sexual development". It's a misunderstood phenomenon arguably wilfully misunderstood according to Janice Turner. These individuals are not "intersex" i.e. between a mix of the two sexes because no one is. She argues that they "almost certainly have 5-ARD: they are biological males with XY chromosomes but whose bodies lack the receptor that creates external male genitalia. She argues that the genitalia is internal but that the genitalia have produced testosterone in the case of these individuals. She adds that "at puberty their internal testes start producing testosterone at normal levels so they acquire most of the strength, muscle mass, height and power of other men."
The IOC spokesperson said that there is a witch-hunt is taking place and that Khelif "was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport." Yes, but the information above explains what's going on. And it's clear that some countries actively search out these people because they know that they will have the edge in female competitions of any kind but in boxing it is particularly dangerous to have this edge on common sense grounds.
Further sidebar/update on this story: two Times well-respected journalists have weighed in again on this ongoing story which has captivated the world. The first I want to mention is Owen Slot. He is a senior Times sports journalist. He starts off today with this paragraph "The boxing controversy at the heart of these Olympic Games was transformed into the most distasteful of circuses at the North Paris Arena yesterday. It is disgusting what has befallen two young athletes here, all in the name of sport."
He very much believes that Khelif should not have been accepted as a boxer in this woman's event.
But we must be sensitive towards Khelif. It is said that he is a victim as well. And he strongly says that "I am a woman. I feel good. It's the first Algerian woman boxing medal. I want to thank the Arabic world." She had just won a bronze medal in her weight category. She weighs 66 kg.
But then Algeria is her effective sponsor, and want her to win a gold medal. It is said by some that Algeria and other countries support women with DSD (it is reported that she has this condition) because they know they have an advantage in women's events. They have testosterone produced by internal testes. So arguably, and I say this with the greatest sensitivity, she may have been indoctrinated into believing that she is a woman and she is actually woman but with some male characteristics which I would argue make in illegible for this event.
The IOC is backpedalling all the time and making excuses and rationalising why she is in the event as is the South Korean boxer with a similar condition. And interestingly Donald Trump is weighed in by saying "I will keep men out of women's sports".
He, therefore, is strongly suggesting in that statement that he believes that Khelif is a man at least biologically/technically because once again I suggest we have to be sensitive to the way people feel about their gender. I'm very much for inclusivity and acceptance of one's feelings about gender.
I now turn to Camilla Long another well respected Times journalist who writes for The Sunday Times. She very much supports what I have said here. She argues that is it is very unfair that Khelif is in the competition and that fairness is central to a good Olympic Games and sport in general.
She quotes Adams, the spokesperson for the IOC who said that "This is not a man fighting a woman".
Camilla Long responds by writing:
"As it happens, Adams is wrong. If you have XY chromosomes and high testosterone levels as it is reasonable to assume these fighters do, for the purpose of sport, if not also life, you are a man. Caster Semenya, for example, [the 800 m runner with the same condition who won gold at the Rio Olympics on a podium with two other women also with the same condition allegedly] has XY chromosomes, was born with a vagina and undescended testicles, which produce testosterone. As she grew up, this hormone build muscle, strengthened her bones, created bigger lungs, allowing her to train harder and longer than women. When she refused to lower her testosterone, she won races. When she did she didn't. People like Adam say the matter is complicated as a way of trying to assert himself and put people off questioning it, but it's not. It really is simple. If you are genetically a man, with testicles, producing testosterone, you are a man. You are not fit to compete with a woman. There are simple tests for it".
And she's not referring to undignified tests. She is referring to a DNA test using a cheek swab.
Further update from The Times Monday, August 5, 2024: yes, this is an evolving story and this further update is designed to help clarify this very complicated problem. I'm thankful to The Times newspaper. Essentially, the findings of the International boxing Association (IBA) as mentioned above that Khelif and Lin, the two female boxers at the centre of this storm at the current, Paris Olympics, have XY chromosomes was passed on to the International Olympics Committee (IOC). They knew that these two boxes have XY chromosomes but their argument is that they do not do gender tests and they only accept gender as per the boxer's passport! In other words they didn't accept the IBA test results but they accepted the passport and what the passport says about gender. I think we can heavily criticise the IOC for that because what the passport says simply isn't factual or scientific evidence that a person is male or female or has XX or XY chromosomes. It is what the government or the authorities or the parents say about their child or citizen. That is not conclusive proof. Particularly when the government has a vested interest in terms of achieving gold at the Olympics.
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It's important to note that while chromosomes play a crucial role in sex determination, they aren't the sole factor. Hormones and other biological processes also contribute to the development of sexual characteristics. Also it must be said that Khelif is not transgender. But IBA say that she has a man's DNA. Therefore she is a man surely? Gender critical Lottie Moore said the fight was an example of male violence against a women just like typical domestic violence. LBGT liberation campaigner Peter Tatchell said that we need more evidence on Khelif as to her gender and levels of testosterone. This chaotic situation would never have occurred many years ago. It has all come about because of the woke movement and the laudable desire to be inclusive.
The International Olympic Committee no longer recognises the IBA because of links with Russia so it runs the boxing competition in Paris itself.
And because of a keen desire for inclusivity, they decided to allow Imane Khelif to box but the argument from people like JK Rowling and Judy Murray, is that they should not be allowed to box in women's events. It's unfair competition.
And what we have here, is a debacle, a farce. Both fighters are harmed by this event. Imane Khelif will be examined and criticised as will the Algerian government I suspect because they supported her and promoted her to help her win a medal for the country.
And of course Angela Carini now has a very strong platform and voice upon which to decry the current policy of allowing what, respectfully, appears to have been a fight between a person who was born biologically a man i.e. with XY chromosomes and a woman with XX chromosomes. This sort of farce should not be allowed to happen in the interests of the physical safety of the woman and the mental health of the person with XY chromosomes.
Of course, I'm talking about biological sex. I'm totally for the concept of people deciding their own sex according to how they feel and behave. There is a disconnect between biological sex and people feeling that they are living in a body which is of the wrong sex. I am sympathetic towards them as all people should be. But that's a different matter to a boxing match where people hit each other.
There has to be a fair fight with equal strength as governed by biological sex.
The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgio Meloni has weighed into the conversation as well. She said: "Athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to women's competitions. And not because you want to discriminate, but to protect the right of female athletes to be able to compete on equal terms. It was not an even contest."
The video on this page is of JK Rowling calling the boxing match a disgrace. She addressed a message to Kirsty Burrows, head of the International Olympic Committee's safe sport unit, who I presume is the person who ultimately made the decision to allow Imane Khelif to fight as an Olympian.
JK Rowling said: "A young female boxer had just had everything she's worked and trained for snatched away because you allowed a male to get in the ring with her. You're a disgrace, your "safeguarding" is a joke and [the Paris Olympics] will for ever be tarnished by the brutal injustice done to Carini."
Imane Khelif was one of two boxes cleared to compete in Paris despite having been disqualified from last year's World Championships which is run by the International Boxing Association. The IBA had banned Imane Khelif from boxing in female competitions but the ICO totally ignored that and they ignored the DNA test I've referred to indicating XY chromosomes.
They were fighting in a 66 kg bout. Carini fell to her knees and sobbed after the bout was abandoned. She refused to shake the hand of her competitor. She had a nose injury and blood on her trunks. She said: "I'm heartbroken because I'm a fighter. I have always stepped into the ring with honour. And this time I couldn't do it because I couldn't fight any more. In that moment, I had to safeguard my life, I train with my brother. I've always fought against men, but I felt too much pain today. It hurt so much. I am heartbroken. I have never felt a punch like this. After the second blow, I felt extreme pain. I didn't lose, I just surrendered with maturity."
Comment: it seems to me that the ICO have been sucked into the woke movement and lost their minds. The woke movement is about inclusivity which is good and must be praised and welcomed because there's been far too much side-lining of people who do not fit into the neat stereotypes in society but this has gone too far.
In a desire for that inclusivity they have endangered one female boxer physically, brought disrepute to the Olympics in general and to Olympics boxing in particular and also, as mentioned, made the life of Imane Khelif far more difficult. It's unfair on so many levels and wrong.
Barry McGuigan, a former world champion boxer said this about the fight:
It’s wrong, it’s unfair, and above all it’s dangerous. Angela Carini’s Olympic dreams lie in ruins because she lost to an opponent with male characteristics. It’s that simple. Who are these people making the decisions? The IOC in their comments never once used the word dangerous. This is amateur sport. These athletes empty themselves in competition. But this is not athletics. In boxing you get hit in the head as well. The situation in Paris is one catastrophic blow from tragedy. These guys at the IOC are playing God.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.
This is a cross-post. I think it is very interesting but I am quite scientific. One reason why it is interesting is because the scientists who dreamt up this plan are concerned about the vulnerability of a storage vault on the Earth because of global warming and nuclear war.
And they are genuinely concerned about ensuring that the planet's precious animal species are preserved for future generations if everything goes pear shaped and the Earth collapses with the loss of all life or the majority of animal species. They see the real prospect of this.
There is already a plant species vault in Norway - the Svalbard seed vault. This stores seeds of vital crops. And there is the UK's Frozen Ark project which has stored more than 48,000 samples of genetic material from about 5,500 species of endangered animal. The problem as stated is that it could all be lost in a nuclear war or through catastrophic global warming.
