How Credit Cards Affect Our Brains

It’s been known for decades that credit cards encourage spending. But why that happens still isn’t entirely clear. New research offers some fresh insight into the causes—and how consumers might be manipulated in an increasingly cashless society.

Research on credit-card spending has tended toward the explanation that delaying payment removes a barrier to purchases in shoppers’ minds. A study published in February in Scientific Reports found evidence of another kind of trigger. Differences it found in brain activity between shoppers planning to use a credit card and those planning to buy with cash indicate that buying on credit doesn’t just ease shoppers’ inhibitions, it actively encourages purchases, the researchers say.

The upshot: When people are shopping with credit cards and see a product they like, the neural network in the brain that produces a sensation of reward perks up, which seems to create a craving to spend, says Sachin Banker, assistant professor at the University of Utah, who worked on the study as a Ph.D. student at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

“You’re basically feeling more reward when you shop with credit cards,” he says. “We don’t see that with cash. It was actually a very stark difference.”

Researchers used a form of magnetic resonance imaging to measure the brain activity of the study subjects as they participated in a shopping exercise. Each participant was shown a total of 84 everyday products over the course of three sessions and was asked whether they would buy each product at the stated price. Half the products were offered for purchase by credit card and half for purchase with cash. None of the products cost more than $50.

The differences in the shoppers’ brain activity support the hypothesis that after repeated credit-card purchases over time the brain learns to anticipate the rewards of credit-card shopping, according to the report. And that suggests that consumers could be conditioned to spend through the use of various sensory rewards in new payment systems, Dr. Banker says. For instance, with digital payments the use of particular sounds or vibrations on your smartphone when you make certain purchases but not others could, over time, teach your brain to anticipate rewards for buying specific products while you’re shopping.

Dr. Banker adds that further research could be done to see if the study’s theories hold true at higher prices. It also could study consumers who tend to overuse or misuse credit cards, to understand further why they act as they do. This study focused on people who mostly paid on time and used credit cards appropriately. Understanding brain patterns for other types of consumers could help lead to solutions that attempt to pre-empt harmful spending behaviour, Dr. Banker says.

It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.

On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.

The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.

Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.

“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.

“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”

Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Photo: NASA’s Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft being rolled out at night. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

What are the goals for Artemis II?

The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.

The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.

Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.

SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .

How is the mission expected to unfold?

Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.

The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.

After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.

Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.

Water photo: NASA’s Orion capsule after its splash-down in the Pacific Ocean in 2022 for the Artemis I mission. Mario Tama/Press Pool

Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?

Yes.

For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.

Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?

The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.

Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.

Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.

Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.

What will the astronauts do during the flight?

The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.

Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.

On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.

There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.

Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.

The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.

What happens after Artemis II?

Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.

NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.

How Credit Cards Affect Our Brains

Buying with plastic doesn’t just eliminate a barrier to buying. It actively encourages purchases.

The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.