Must-Have Art: The Brain Science Behind the Sudden Splurge
Psychologists, consumer experts, collectors and dealers talk about impulse buys
Illustration by Verónica Grech.
“Businesses often use words like ‘limited’, ‘rare’, and ‘only one left’ in order to create panic in the brain,” says NYU Stern Business School professor of consumer behavior Dr. Jacob Jacoby, who spoke to the Observer by phone. “They trigger a reaction called ‘Loss Aversion’; when you’re more concerned with losing something than gaining something.”
In other words, FOMO—a.k.a. “fear of missing out”—is a very real thing that our brains are wired for. And that fear is especially involved in fueling impulse art purchases, since no one really “needs” a giant bronze foot.
Art fairs are loaded with buying-behavior triggers. In fact, constructed “rarity” can often force a buyer to make decisions long before the end of a fair. From the moment doors open, often only to VIPs for a sneak peak, there is pressure to move fast. Buying in public, amongst an onslaught of friends, or more importantly, rivals in the insular world of Contemporary Art collecting, spurs a sense of competition. Online access—including pre-fair offers—has sped up the purchase cycle, forcing collectors to decide on purchases faster than ever, and the limited fair dates only leaves so much time to decide on a purchase (perhaps solely as a souvenir) in an exotic and far away locale.
The 2011 LISTE Art Fair. (Photo: Wikipedia)
And yes, some dealers might try to take advantage of the swirling chaos. “I passed the booth of a dealer I’m close friends with at a fair a few years ago,” said one collector who preferred to remain anonymous. “She was so eager to sell me a piece that, before we even spoke, she started writing up a sale for an expensive artwork I didn’t know and definitely didn’t like. I was seeing the work for the first time, and hers was the first booth I entered! I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so I told her I’d have circle back to her—and never did.”
While it may seem clear that these fairs are a dastardly scheme by art insiders to part collectors from their money via inscrutable techniques, Arthur B. Markman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas and author of the book Slow Change, says don’t blame the fair, blame your brain.
Your brain on art. (Photo: Courtesy of Hey Paul Studios)
But why do you want this object so
badly? Apparently it’s because, as with sports stars or Hollywood actors, you start to identify with it.
According to Ian Zimmerman, an expert in consumer psychology at the University of Missouri, Columbia, whenever we’re connected to a product—physically (it’s in front of us), temporally (we can buy it now), or socially (we see someone else interacting with it and compare ourselves to that person), it literally changes the way our minds perceive it.
Writing in Psychology Today, he noted: “Our minds essentially start acting like we already own the product, which makes it harder to go without buying it.”
Wait, so you can’t blame the art dealer’s voodoo mind tricks, the fair’s congested aisles or the fact that you got three hours sleep the night before as the reason why you own a gigantic gold macrame spider web?
Nope. “The pressure to buy really comes from within the collectors themselves,” said Mr. Markman.
Indeed, buying decisions are generally more self-directed—more planned out even—than they might seem. “An ‘impulse buy’ is not really an impulse,” Dr. Jacoby of NYU Stern said. “At some point in time, you make a mental note that you need this, so when you are confronted with it later on, you are ready to make a critical decision.”
Crucial information travels fast these days, and you have to be ready to make quick decisions. This is often the case when “influencers” create a ripple effect on “copy cat” collectors, creating a run on certain artists. These scrums for young art may seem totally random to an outsider, but are often based on intel.
And with the rapid rise in prices for some emerging art, pressure to get the “right” artist at the “right” price at the “right” time has begun to creep into the backs of even the wealthiest collectors’ minds.
Two 2015 paintings by Ayan Farah. (Photo: Courtesy of Instagram)
But when it comes to true impulse buys, some think there’s nothing wrong with them. “Impulse buys are usually based on an emotional response to an artwork, and that’s exactly what most artists are hoping their works will provoke,” said art dealer and artist Ryan Wallace, who co-owns Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton and will have his own work at a booth at the UNTITLED. Art Fair this month.
“When I see collectors disappointed in something that they bought, it’s usually something that was on a “shopping list” of hot artists they didn’t have any emotional connection to. An impulse is the opposite of this.”
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