Hi everyone and welcome back to another instalment of Psychology 101! Now for those of you who know me you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m very excited for Christmas. As soon as December hits, the tree is up and the Christmas songs are out. And because I’m in a very festive mood it’ll be no big surprise to find that this article is going to be all about Christmas Psychology!

Sorry (not sorry) for those of you who don’t celebrate or care about Christmas but this is my segment and I’m going to write what I want 🙂

And! Since this is my segment I’m going to mix it up today and write this article a little differently, so here goes:

PETRA’S 10 FANTASTICALLY SPLENDID CHRISTMAS PSYCHOLOGY FUN FACTS

1. Research has shown that people who focus their Christmas celebrations on presents are less happy during the holidays then those who focus their Christmas celebrations on family and religion.
2. However, spending money on presents for others makes us feel happy! (If you don’t have anyone who you want to give a gift to but still want to be happy then I’m willing to volunteer to receive presents).
3. BUT with that said, buying Christmas presents for others can be stressful. How much should you spend? What if they don’t like your present? What if they’re not buying me something? What if they decided they’re giving up all materialistic goods and are going to live in the forest for the remainder of their lives? It’s been proven that giving people money is a lot less stressful. And it solves the problem of not knowing what to buy someone!
4. …but giving people money can be a problem. Studies have shown that giving people money generally has the negative connotations that you don’t care enough about someone to put thought into their gift. Honestly there’s no winning. We should all just go live in the forests forever.
5. Surveys indicate that women are generally a lot more stressed out during the holiday season. This could be because other surveys indicate that women give 84% of gifts proving that present buying is stressful!
6. Though we’ve determined present buying is stressful, Christmas spirit is actually associated with being free and relaxed! This is less likely to do with presents and likely because Christmas brings the end of the year closer away from work and school and all that nasty stuff.
7. It also brings the excitement of anticipation! Some may say the build up to Christmas is even better than the actual day because that’s where everyone gets super hyped for the holidays and daydreams about how great Christmas will be.
8. As a child what I anticipated most was the arrival of Santa. Studies shown that even though generally lying takes a psychological toll on those who are lying and those who are being lied to—believing in Santa can actually be beneficial. It helps develop children imagination and increases their excitement for Christmas.
9. However once they find out the truth the results can be catastrophic. Parents are riddled with guilt and children are beyond saddened. A child that I knew when I was younger was told Santa wasn’t real and instead of believing the fact she lived in denial and told herself that Santa hypnotised parents into buying presents for children because he was too busy to by them himself. (And before you ask, no that child was totally not me…haha…*sweats nervously*).
10. After Santa my second favourite part of Christmas was the songs. However loads of studies suggest that Christmas songs can actually be bad for our mental health and lessen the Christmas mood. This is because we hear the same songs on repeat over and over again and not only do we get sick of them we get extremely aggravated by them. That’s why everyone should follow my personal rule and not play Christmas music until December first (anyone who plays Christmas songs before this time is dead to me).

So there we have it, a special edition Psychology 101 Christmas Extravaganza article! I hope everyone has a brilliant December regardless of whether or not you celebrate Christmas and see you next time!

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/slightly-blighty/201512/the-psychology-christmas-presents

http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/12/the-12-psychology-studies-of-christmas.php

http:///www.buy-petra-presents.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/the-psychology-of-christm_b_2357763.html

http://mvresnovae.com/featured/holly-jolly-psychology-science-behind-christmas-spirit/

https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-psychology-of-santa-claus-christmas-71679