Books, stamps, beanie babies, movie tickets, why do people collect things?
What’s the point?
Hey collectors, Julia here for DNews.
In today’s world downsizing is big.
Getting rid of clutter is trendy and people are learning to live with less.
Yet there will always be that one person you know who collects things.
Like Sheli McHugh on twitter who collects sheep things or my friend Chastity who has
kept tickets from every movie she’s been to since 1997.
So why do people do it?
I turned to twitter for some personal answers.
People have all sorts of reasons.
For some collecting is a way to bond with people, like ‏Bruivision collected coins
as a hobby to share with her dad.
Moiety Mouse said they collect rocks out of curiosity about the world around them.
DR.
Zen collects key chains because s/he enjoys the “thrill of the hunt.”
People like this aren’t just weird pack rats.
They’re just fulfilling a natural urge.
The urge to collect is very primitive and is found throughout the animal kingdom.
Over 70 species have been documented to collect.
Rats and crows.
The bowerbird of Eastern Australia and Queensland collects unusual objects as part of an elaborate
courtship ritual.
So some researchers think collecting goes back to early days as humans.
For our hunter-gather ancestors, collecting food could mean the difference between life
and death during a harsh growing season or famine.
So it’s not surprising this trait evolved.
But collecting beanies won’t help you survive a winter.
(sorry 90s kids, they’re pretty worthless, unless it’s a rare princess Di bear.)
So what’s going on in the brain?
Like Dr. Zen said, it’s the thrill of the hunt.
When you find that thing, that rare baseball card your brain releases a hit of dopamine.
That tells your brain “yeah this is good, do it again”.
This probably helped our ancestors find food.
Finding some ripe berries made their brains go, “yup awesome, these will keep us alive,
do it again” but after a while the brain gets used to it and doesn’t release as much
dopamine the next time they found those berries.
So you keep seeking.
Keep hunting for that next thrill.
While that kept our ancestors alive.
It keeps us seeking and collecting.
Research published in the journal Brain found the specific area of the brain responsible
for collecting behavior.
The researchers identified 13 patients with focal brain lesions who exhibited abnormal
collecting behavior but performed fine on tests of intelligence, memory, and reasoning.
These patients showed no signs of abnormal collecting before the brain damage.
After using high resolution 3D MRI, the researchers found the culprit.
It turns out that the brain was damaged in a very specific place, in “a part of the
frontal lobes of the cortex, particularly on the right side”.
Speaking of abnormal collecting behavior, are you having trouble letting go of your
collection?
That’s not so unusual.
In fact it’s pretty biological.
Dr. Loretta G Breuning, founder of the Inner Mammal Institute describes an experiment where
monkeys were given spinach as a reward for a task.
Which, ya know they liked.
But when they were given a grape, their dopamine levels spiked.
After a while of getting that grape as a reward, their brains stopped spiking with as much
dopamine.
So it stopped feeling as good.
Then the researchers switched back to spinach and the monkeys were NOT HAPPY.
AT ALL.
They missed the grapes, even if they stopped feeling as good.
So for most of us it’s perfectly natural to not feel good about letting things go.
But sometimes, it’s a problem.
Another study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, using MRI techniques,
found that patients with hoarding disorder have abnormal activity in the anterior cingulate
cortex (ACC) and insula.
They had lower activity than other people when faced with the idea of giving away stuff
that didn’t belong to them, but more activity when faced with the thought of giving away
their own stuff.
The patients reported indecisiveness, and feeling like things were "not just right".
Another study published in the journal American Journal of Psychiatry, found that people who
hoard showed decreased brain activity in the posterior cingulate gyrus.
An area involved in spatial orientation and memory.
This could be why some people who hoard have problems with clutter and fear of losing their
things, maybe their stuff is associated with a memory..
So some collecting, natural and benefited us back in the day.
A lot of collecting and keeping…
well they make whole shows about that.
To see first hand how enthusiastic some people get about their collection, check out this
great episode from Seeker Stories all about a group of
people who collect sneakers.