Why some women collect plastic bags

Why does the housewife collect polythene bags? For the same reason why you may be willing to pay, say, Rs5 lakh for a 2007 Toyota Corolla, but would probably expect a much higher price if you were selling your own used 2007 Toyota Corolla.

Which again is why you do not throw away a new pair of shoes that pinch your feet badly; instead you stack it away at the back of your shoe rack, where it rests for a long time; the more expensive the pair, the longer it rests on the rack.

And which is also the reason why junk accumulates in our drawers, cabinets, wardrobes, desks, homes and offices, incessantly!

What’s common in all these tendencies is the desire to maintain status quo. The polythene bags may clutter the kitchen but will not be thrown out. The used car will sit longer in the garage (maintaining status quo) as you want a better price for it than you are willing to pay for the same car model.

The shoe will occupy some real estate but not be thrown away. Your share may be a dog but the investor will not sell it off to invest the proceeds in a star.

There is something else in common. We take bad news very badly but we do not accept good news with great enthusiasm. If you find a Rs500 note unexpectedly, you may not be thrilled; but if you lose an equal amount, it bothers you considerably. The happiness and the pain are not symmetrical for the same gain or loss. That’s why most people do not accept an even gamble — a gamble in which you gain or lose the same amount, say Rs100, at the toss of a coin. This is called loss aversion.

Our housewife may have acquired the bags for nothing in the course of routine shopping without any sense of elation. But that does not mean she will part with them with equal indifference. She may imagine a situation when she may need a bag but may be caught without one, and it may force her to buy one!

The scenario assumes a disproportionate dimension. The opportunity cost of  throwing away the bag that she sees is disproportionate to its real cost.

It’s the same with the pinching shoe. Its true value may be zero to you, given that you have no intention of wearing it again, but the agony of throwing it away looms larger than the relatively low pleasure of keeping it in the shoe rack.

In the process, you also trick your mind into believing that the shoe is not a dead loss because it is there! This is also why you want a higher price while selling a car than you are willing to pay for another one of its kind. When you sell a car, you are letting go of an asset, and since losses loom larger than profits, you want a higher price for it while selling than what you are willing to pay for buying the same asset. Loss aversion.

We spoke of junk accumulating on our desks, in our cabinets and homes. We add things to the household clutter every time we shop. But the rate at which we dispose of household stuff
follows the same rule as the polythene bag. They come in but don’t leave our homes quickly enough.

A typical study drawer may be a clutter of pins, clips, pencils, ball-pens, refills, scales, Post-Its, key rings, unused keys, wires, non-working pen drives, assorted visiting cards, broken scissors, invoices, miscellaneous receipts, and what have you. But every time we clear the drawer, we throw out much less than what we probably should.

Our wardrobes keep accumulating uwanted, shrunken, discoloured, frayed, or old garments. But every time we think of cleaning up the clutter, our mind discovers reasons why this or that cannot be discarded just yet — that old T-shirt could be worn for the next alumni meet, I could get into this jacket as soon as I lose weight, and so on. That’s why when we buy a new iron or a suitcase, the old one is not necessarily discarded immediately. Why blame the housewife alone?

And if you ever wonder why you don’t change the brand of your toothpaste or hair cream very often, it’s the status quo bias again!