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Shopping used to be nothing more than a way of obtaining food, clothing and other necessities of life. Today, however, shopping symbolizes the materialistic culture of western society and its popularity as a leisure activity reflects the rise of consumerism.【R1】______Having more money has meant spending patterns have changed. While traditional models of economic behavior assume that consumers are rational and weigh up the costs and benefits before making a purchase, anyone who has ever walked into a shop and left five minutes later with a new jacket and 180 less in their wallet knows that this theory does not always hold true. 【R2】______Her research on consumer behavior identified impulsive buying as an attempt by shoppers to bolster their self-image, particularly for those who suffered from so-called compulsive buying or shopping addiction, a condition that affects 2 to 5 per cent of adults in the West. The three-year study compared excessive buyers to a similar group of ordinary consumers. Excessive shoppers were more materialistic and believed that buying goods was a pathway to success, happiness and identity. " Excessive buying is a coping strategy to fill the gaps between how shoppers feel about themselves and the person they want to be," Dr Dittmar said.【R3】______Her research also reveals that certain types of goods are more likely to be bought on impulse than others. Those most frequently reported—clothes, jewellery, ornaments—are closely related to self-image and appearance. This finding is contrary to usual theories about impulse shopping, which explain it as a short-term gratification winning out over longer-term concerns such as debt. 【R4】______In other words, shoppers were more willing to wait for "low impulse" goods such as kitchenware, than they were for clothes or other "high impulse" items. However, it was found that some of the 60 consumers asked to maintain a shopping diary for the study often regretted their impulsive purchases. Dr Dittmar said, "When people had explicitly bought for self-image reasons, regret was more likely to occur. " But this finding was ambiguous because shopping addicts were more motivated by self-image than ordinary shoppers and were more likely to regret their actions. "It"s not quite clear which way round this relationship goes, but there is a link between being very concerned with self-image goods and regretting impulse buying. " The conclusions drawn by Dr Dittmar about the treatment of compulsive shoppers are that prescribing anti-depressant drugs might solve the problem but only as long as sufferers continue to take them. Instead, they needed therapeutic help to address the underlying causes such as poor self-image. 【R5】______"In no sense do these people directly force anyone to buy anything. But they are very sophisticated, making advertisements and shopping environments very seductive and playing on the idea that if you buy product X you will be much more attractive. "A. Dr. Dittmar said that the idea that consumers" impulsiveness differed, depending on the type of goods, was also supported by the finding that shoppers were less willing to delay gratification for items bought on impulse.B. But there are pitfalls, such as debt and addiction to buying. Addicts shop for shopping"s sake rather than to buy what they need.C. Helga Dittmar, senior lecturer in psychology at Sussex University, has found that consumer goods are the material symbols of who a person is and who they would like to be.D. Her research also raises questions over the methods used to attract shoppers and encourage them to buy. Although advertisers and retailers increasingly appeal to consumers" self-image, Dr Dittmar said it was very difficult to argue that these factors were responsible for compulsive shopping.E. Although there were other ways of dealing with poor self-image, such as over-exercising or alcoholism , she said that shopping had become one of the most important strategies. This was especially true for women, who were three times more likely to be compulsive shoppers than men, as shopping was a socially approved activity, and allowed those who do not go out to work to get out of the house, Dr. Dittmar said.F. Women make the majority of buying decisions—estimates anywhere from 60 - 80% and growing. Despite these facts, some industries have created frustrating walls and barriers failing to cater to the buying characteristics women are looking for.G. This has been made possible by the 75 per cent increase in disposable income in the past 20 years. The number of credit cards in use has more than quadrupled, and the amount of outstanding consumer debt has almost tripled in the same period. 【R2】
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Disappointment followed his hopes of______after the costly operation.
In the grip of a bubble mentality, we—as investors, consumers and businesses—blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it was perfectly safe to do so. We bought houses with no money down, took on huge amounts of debt and let the booming stock and housing markets perform the heavy lifting of saving. After all, new technologies, securitization and derivatives permitted financial wizards to slice, dice, sell—and, ultimately, banish—any type of risk. But the intellectual scaffolding surrounding that culture of debt and risk has fallen along with the stocks of Citigroup and AIG. And now the Zeitgeist has spun 180 degrees. Squeeze your nickels, slash debt, stop gambling. 【R6】______Those are the $4 trillion questions. Earlier this decade, we transitioned effortlessly from the dotcom bubble to a housing and credit bubble, which suggests a powerful resiliency. But financial trauma can leave deep scar tissue, as it did after the Great Depression. It"s tempting in this period of contraction to mimic Thoreau, to live simply and deliberately. But if we lose our penchant for gain and risk, we"ll lose some of the essence of what makes us American. Economists warn that if we don"t manage to jolt the economy back to life soon, we runthe risk of repeating Japan"s "lost decade" of the 1990s. Would that be so bad【R7】______ But America is different. Thanks to our continually rising population, we need significant growth just to maintain our standards of living—and the health of our democracy. Saving cash and building up reserves is a necessary first step to recovery. But eventually the mountain of cash has to be put to work. Last week"s sharp market rally was certainly a sign—however fleeting it may turn out to be—that investors are putting money to work again.【R8】______ Between 1996 and 2007, according to the Kauffman Foundation, about 0. 3 percent of the adult population started a new business each month, or about 495 ,000 per month.【R9】______In recent years, many new businesses have been financed through retirement savings, second mortgages and credit-card debt. None of those three sources of funding is particularly deep now. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship. The new ethos of thrift, which is as much about efficiency and sustainability as it is about penny-pinching, may have significant commercial applications—beyond green roofs. Startups in wind power and smart-grid technology are still finding sources of funding. Small enterprises that install solar panels and conduct energy audits are expanding.【R10】______ The markets, and the economy as a whole, are continually buffeted by the twin forces of fear and greed. For the past year, fear has clearly had the upper hand. But over time, as fear subsides, our inborn instincts to improve our lot—Adam Smith would call it self-interest—will make a comeback.A. They, and other businesses, will benefit from measures in the recently passed stimulus package to weatherize homes, and make government buildings more energy-efficient.B. After all, while Japan endured a prolonged period of slow growth, nobody starved, there was no social unrest in the aging country, and its biggest companies continued to innovate.C. Until America emerges from its bunker, the global economy—facing its first year of contraction since World War II—is likely to remain moribund.D. Is this era of thrift a temporary phenomenon Will we revert to our risk-taking selves as soon as we latch on to the next New, New ThingE. But investing during slack times requires a leap of faith. It"s possible that all we need is another bout of enthusiasm to jolt the nation out of its torpor.F. There"s no reason to think such entrepreneurial activity will decline in this recession, although there are some barriers.G. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship. Last October, Susan Durrett was laid off from her job at a San Francisco-based architecture firm. 【R6】
In the grip of a bubble mentality, we—as investors, consumers and businesses—blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it was perfectly safe to do so. We bought houses with no money down, took on huge amounts of debt and let the booming stock and housing markets perform the heavy lifting of saving. After all, new technologies, securitization and derivatives permitted financial wizards to slice, dice, sell—and, ultimately, banish—any type of risk. But the intellectual scaffolding surrounding that culture of debt and risk has fallen along with the stocks of Citigroup and AIG. And now the Zeitgeist has spun 180 degrees. Squeeze your nickels, slash debt, stop gambling. 【R6】______Those are the $4 trillion questions. Earlier this decade, we transitioned effortlessly from the dotcom bubble to a housing and credit bubble, which suggests a powerful resiliency. But financial trauma can leave deep scar tissue, as it did after the Great Depression. It"s tempting in this period of contraction to mimic Thoreau, to live simply and deliberately. But if we lose our penchant for gain and risk, we"ll lose some of the essence of what makes us American. Economists warn that if we don"t manage to jolt the economy back to life soon, we runthe risk of repeating Japan"s "lost decade" of the 1990s. Would that be so bad【R7】______ But America is different. Thanks to our continually rising population, we need significant growth just to maintain our standards of living—and the health of our democracy. Saving cash and building up reserves is a necessary first step to recovery. But eventually the mountain of cash has to be put to work. Last week"s sharp market rally was certainly a sign—however fleeting it may turn out to be—that investors are putting money to work again.【R8】______ Between 1996 and 2007, according to the Kauffman Foundation, about 0. 3 percent of the adult population started a new business each month, or about 495 ,000 per month.【R9】______In recent years, many new businesses have been financed through retirement savings, second mortgages and credit-card debt. None of those three sources of funding is particularly deep now. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship. The new ethos of thrift, which is as much about efficiency and sustainability as it is about penny-pinching, may have significant commercial applications—beyond green roofs. Startups in wind power and smart-grid technology are still finding sources of funding. Small enterprises that install solar panels and conduct energy audits are expanding.【R10】______ The markets, and the economy as a whole, are continually buffeted by the twin forces of fear and greed. For the past year, fear has clearly had the upper hand. But over time, as fear subsides, our inborn instincts to improve our lot—Adam Smith would call it self-interest—will make a comeback.A. They, and other businesses, will benefit from measures in the recently passed stimulus package to weatherize homes, and make government buildings more energy-efficient.B. After all, while Japan endured a prolonged period of slow growth, nobody starved, there was no social unrest in the aging country, and its biggest companies continued to innovate.C. Until America emerges from its bunker, the global economy—facing its first year of contraction since World War II—is likely to remain moribund.D. Is this era of thrift a temporary phenomenon Will we revert to our risk-taking selves as soon as we latch on to the next New, New ThingE. But investing during slack times requires a leap of faith. It"s possible that all we need is another bout of enthusiasm to jolt the nation out of its torpor.F. There"s no reason to think such entrepreneurial activity will decline in this recession, although there are some barriers.G. Even so, layoffs can prove a powerful spur to entrepreneurship. Last October, Susan Durrett was laid off from her job at a San Francisco-based architecture firm. 【R9】
The phenomenon of stress has been widely discussed and referred to as one of the central problems of our age. Globalization and the improved technology it brings only seems to make this problem worse, creating more options while at the same time making our lives more complex. Closely bound up with stress is the problem of "time famine". In Britain, for example, the combination of the longest working hours in Europe and the highest proportion of working women in Europe means people have less and less time to themselves. Add to this the rise in the number of single-person households and the work ethic promoted by successive governments since the early eighties and it becomes easy to see why time is now at a premium for so many of us. One response to this has come from the USA, so often the forerunner in what is fashionable, in the form of lifestyle management. This involves hiring a company to repair the house, do the shopping and a host of other time consuming tasks. Some analysts insist that the management of people"s time could be big business in the next 10 years. In the USA lifestyle management companies have been around for a while but now it seems that the British are keen to use them too. What most potential customers want is quality time. This means taking away the day to day hassles connected with running our lives. Whereas in the past there always seemed to be time for arranging private lives and keeping up with everyday demands of house, health, children or holidays, nowadays the work obsessed population, tied to the office, do not appear to be able to cope with such inconveniences. In other words, people require a separate Personal Assistant for their lifestyle! The jury is out, however, as to whether this new service is beneficial or not. Being constantly pressed for time is undoubtedly stressful and what could be better than relieving such pressures by offloading some of our more mundane tasks on a willing helper Perhaps this can also be a way to ensure that you get quality service:. It is often said that a large part of Britain"s service sector aims purely and simply at short term profit in return for bad quality goods and poor service. If you put experts in charge of finding a good plumber at a reasonable rate you can at least be assured that your leaking pipes will be fixed properly. This raises an important question, however. Is it really good for us to create more time to spend at work when we are already exhausted from working long hours It may be far more important to take control of our private lives ourselves and in so doing relieve stress by giving ourselves a proper escape from the cares of the work-place. After all, if you do not have time to look after your own home and to organize your own life, then, just maybe, you have got your priorities wrong. There may be one reason why, in the end, the lifestyle management business will not take off in the UK and that is the inherendy conservative nature of the British. To really embrace this new concept we might all need to rethink our lives! According to the text, most potential customers______.
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