Why You Overspent This Christmas: The Holidays and the Ostrich Problem

Did you overspend this Christmas? It's not all that surprising if you did. Now, scientists have found out why reaching goals becomes so difficult over the holiday season. It turns out that we are motivated to ignore targets and instead indulge during the holidays.

When you try to achieve goals, like losing weight or achieving financial goals, monitoring can help. For example, stepping on a scale regularly can help individuals shed a few pounds. Yet it turns out that at some times, individuals intentionally avoid information.

"There will be plenty of us over the Christmas period who will not check our bank balance or look at the calories on the back of the box of mince pies despite us wanting to be in control of our money or lose weight," said Thomas Webb, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The project proposes that there is an 'ostrich problem' such that people bury their heads in the sand."

In fact, people seem to be motivated by reasons for avoiding information. This ostrich problem is the idea that there are times that people would rather not know how they're doing in terms of goals. Avoiding monitoring could allow people to escape from the negative feelings associated with an accurate progress report. For example, people may not want to know exactly how much money they spent during the holiday season.

These findings are important for helping people stick to goals. If individuals intentionally avoid information, then they may have problems achieving their goals. By understanding the mental process behind this sort of thinking, researchers can better help individuals in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass.