How can shopping eventually transform a

shopper into a shopaholic?

Topic – Shopaholic

Goal – To help people to understand and identify

shopaholicism, to help shopaholic

Areas of Interactions – Health & Social Education

Olivia Lam

4 Peace

Supervisor – Mr. A Chan

Victoria Shanghai Academy

1
 2009 – 2010

Word Count: 3,323

Table of Content

1. Introduction
 Topic 3
 Inquiry Question 3
 Areas of Interaction 3-4
 Goal 5

2. Process
 Research Process 5-7
 Creation Process 7-8
 Solution Process 8-9

3. Analysis
 Analysis of the Inspiration 9 – 10
 Analysis of the Relevant Information 10 – 11
 Analysis of the Sources 11 – 12
 Reflection of the Goal / Areas of Interactions 12 – 13

4. Evaluation
 Evaluation of Process 13 – 14
 Evaluation of Product 14
 Did I achieve my goal? 15 – 16

5. Conclusion
 What I learnt 16 – 17
 Possible improvement 17

6. Bibliography 18 -19

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7. Appendix
 Product Survey 20

Introduction

Topic:

The Personal Project that I am going to accomplish within this year is

talking about Shopaholics. The personal project was based on my inquiry question of

“How can shopping eventually transform a shopper into a shopaholic?” so as to

investigate the causes of a shopper becoming a shopaholic and ways to prevent one

from becoming a shopaholic.

Inquiry Question:

The inquiry question is “How can shopping eventually transform a

shopper in to a shopaholic?” I inquired my topic based on my inquiry question. My

goal is to let others know more about shopaholicism, so finding why shopping could

make a shopper become shopaholic had help me a lot to make the brochure, since

treating shopaholicism needed to know why patients become addicted to shopping so

it could also help to stop the addiction.

Areas of Interaction:

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 I had chosen Health & Social Education as the area of interaction for my

project, because shopaholicism is a materialistic thing and mentality is part of our

health. So shopaholicism is a problem with the mind and it is not healthy. From one of

the research that I did “Some Psychiatrists See ‘Shopaholic’ As a Diagnisis”,

shopaholicism happened because of stress so shopaholicism is one of the psychiatric

or psychology problems that happen because of pressure.

The Areas of Interaction of my personal project is Health and Social

Education, because shopaholicism is a psychological health problem that came

from one of my research “Diagnosis Shopaholic:‘a psychiatric problem’”1 it

was when people felt over – pressured they use shopping for releasing their

pressure and keeping shopping and shopping over and over again their mind

may thought shopping would release their pressure, so they become addicted

to shopping. While Health and Social Education was mentioning about our

physical, emotional, mental so this was the main reason that I choose Health

& Social Education as my area of interaction because my project is talking

about the health problem of a shopaholic.

1
Ramsay, Andrea. "Diagnosis Shopaholic: 'a psychiatric problem'" The Review. 21 Nov. 2006.
<http://www.udreview.com/2.1980/diagnosis-shopaholic-a-psychiatric-problem-1.140867#>.

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Goal:

The goal of what I need achieved in my personal project is “To help

people to understand and identify shopaholicism, to help shopaholic” .I choose this

goal because there are many people don’t recognize how and why it is so easy to

become a shopaholic and they think shopaholicism happened because there were some

problems in their mind. People had a totally wrong concept about shopaholicism and

they just misunderstood why they needed to shop.

To achieve my goal, letting other people know more about

shopaholicism is the best way to change their wrong concepts. Also there were many

people don’t even realize that they had the possibility that they already became or

have the chances of becoming a shopaholic, so to understand shopaholicism is very

important for our society and to prevent more people from becoming shopaholics.

Description of Process

Research Process:

After brainstorming the topic, goal, inquiry question and choosing the

area of interactions of my personal project, I started my research stage by researching

the internet, because the internet is a new convenient way to shop and since

shopaholicism was very rare in old days. Thus, the internet had the newest

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information. Also shopaholicism was a unique topic so regular research ways

couldn’t find much of useful information.

Apart from the internet researches, I had also researched some movies

and videos. Since there were many movies which had used shopaholic as their theme

of the movie, I had watched many movies for some advice. At the same time the

movies had visual and sound effects which enabled me to understand more about the

shopaholism and made more emotional effects.

I used research techniques that I learned during the past few years in

MYP and used organizing techniques to organize my information with my process

journal. For movie and books research, I used my summary skills for recording down

the useful points.

My plan for doing my personal project in the planning and developing

stage is that I will do my primary researches mainly from July to October. Those were

research like survey, interview, medical reports and videos. From November I needed

to start to do further secondary researches. Secondary researches were like some

internet and books. When it was nearly Christmas I needed to start to do my product

and the product had finished at the end of Christmas.

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This was the table I created during the planning and developing stage

Task Date
Primary Research July to October
Secondary Research November to December
Product – Brochure December to end of December
Reflective Essay Draft 1 Starting from January
Reflective Essay Draft 2 Starting from end of January
Final Reflective Essay Finish in middle of February

Creation Process:

My product that I had created for my personal project was a brochure.

The brochure included the brief description of my topic shopaholic and symptom of

shopaholicism, and I had shown people some ways to help and prevent becoming a

shopaholic. The product had achieved my goal which let other people understand

about shopaholicism and help them to identify shopaholic with their symptom of

shopaholicism.

From the middle of December I started doing my brochure as my

product of my project, I planned to use computer as the tools for making my brochure.

I had used a software that was very convenient for making brochure, but there were

some technical problems appeared in the creations stage, finally the problem had been

solved.

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 I finished my brochure at the end of the Christmas holiday, although

there was a technical problem but the process of making the brochure hadn’t left me

behind the schedule.

Solution Process:

Since there were some technical problems that appeared in the middle of

the process of the creation, (which happened because the software which was very

convenient for brochure but didn’t run on my computer) I couldn’t print out the

finished product from my computer.

The technical problem had been solved with efficient timing, so the

problem hadn’t affected much of the process. Fortunately, I quickly think of a another

software that could make brochure easily so that makes the creation process was quite

successful.

I solved the technical problem by doing the brochure again in the other

free brochure maker in the internet. The internet software was called “My Brochure

Maker”, it was a free internet database that include brochure so I changed to this

instead of Microsoft Publisher.

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Analysis

Analysis of the Inspiration:

The inspiration of the topic of my personal project was the movie “Confession

of a Shopaholic”2. After watching this movie I thought shopaholicism is a very

interesting thing to learn about. Also because I love to go shopping and touring around

the shopping mall so I thought this topic is very suitable for me to do in my project.

Since shopping is one of my habits, I am very interesting to exploring about the side

effect of over shopping.

Most of the ideas of my personal project came from the movie

“Confession of a Shopaholic” and the movie “The Shopaholics”. Watching these

movies had made me understanding more about shopaholic when compared to other

resources I had researched. Since the movies had visual effects and sound effects so I

understood the ideas more clearly.

Analysis of the Relevant Information:

The choice that I had made for researching relevant research was novels,

movies, videos and internet. There were many novels and movies were using

shopaholic as their main theme. Also there were many television shows that

2
Confessions of a Shopaholic. By Sophie Kinsella. Perf. Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, John
Goodman, Joan Cusack and John Lithgow. Jerry Bruckheimer Films, 2009. DVD.

9
introduced shopaholics. Sometimes there were even interviews with some shopaholic

patients.

As I had mentioned in the research process stage, I had talked about

what I had researches in my personal project. Since the researches that I had done are

relevant information from internet, I had once doubted if the information was reliable

or not.

I had done the researches which were mostly from internet resources. Because

nowadays, shopping were not just shopping in the malls and shops, internet shopping

was a new and convenient way of shopping. Also shopaholicism was a new term in

our language, most of the books didn’t include the information that I needed.

The most relevant researches were “Diagnosis Shopaholic: a psychiatric

problem”, “Are you a Shopaholic”, “Quiz and facts on shopaholic”. These three

information had given great ideas on shopaholicism. The first had let me know more

on psychiatric, and shopaholicism was not just a mentally problem. The second one

was telling me some ways on checking the symptoms of shopaholicism for knowing

the person was a shopaholic or not. The last one had let me know more on the

symptoms of shopaholicism also it includes some way for prevent become a

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shopaholic and ways to cure shopaholicism.

The relevant researches were very useful for my project, but it was quite

a pity that I could not found much psychiatrist’s or psychologist’s reports. Finally I

could get one and I felt very happy that I had the relevant researches for my project.

Analysis of the Sources:

The researches that I had done was mostly done by the same sources – internet,

since shopping was not just touring the shopping malls and shops internet shopping

and TV shopping is a very popular and convenient to shop, so internet had more

researches that was relevant for me to used in my project. Overall, internet was a very

handy source for me to used, but using internet as a sources needed to be very careful,

because sometimes internet is not a very reliable sources.

Other than internet, I had also included other sources like books, movies, TV

programs, videos. All of the sources had brought out much relevant information there

were useful for me to include in my personal project.

All of the sources that I had used in my personal project were very useful for

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my project, it gave me lots of ideas and helps me a lot from making the brochure. By

choosing the right source was very important in my project, because of this wonderful

I had a successful project.

Reflection of the goal / Areas of Interactions:

The Area of Interaction of my personal project is Health & Social Education,

because my topic shopaholic was about psychological things on shopaholics. So the

choice of my area of interactions was right, it was very suitable for my personal

project. The areas of interactions helped me a lot to develop the right path of

researching, because I understood that I should research more about the health, since it

is a kind of health problem. For example, shopaholicism is a psychiatric problem, and

it also linked to health, so the area of interaction had helped me a lot in researching.

The goal of my personal project is to help people to understand and identify

shopaholicism, to help shopaholic. Since my inquiry question was asking about why

shopping could transform a shopper into a shopaholic, so my goal was very relevant to

my project, and I did achieve my goal by finishing my product that made more people

to know about shopaholicism by reading my brochure. The brochure could make

people to know more information, so they could know about shopaholicism by

reading my brochure. Most people were willing to read a brochure rather than an

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advertisement or newspaper, so a brochure could alert more people about

shopaholicism. From the result of my survey, I did proof people were willing to read

brochure than other promotion, since they can take away and read it anytime they

want, therefore they can read my message from my brochure.

Evaluation

Evaluation of Process:

All the process for my personal project was quite successfully. There were

some problems during the research process and the creation process, but the problems

hadn’t influenced my project quite much. At the end the project was come up very

successfully.

During the research process, I had faced some problems for failing to

source the right information. Such as I needed to find a psychologist or a psychiatric

report about shopaholicism, but it just appeared that the article was writing about the

doctor’s opinion rather that factual information. Finally, I could locate at least one for

as supporting for my point of view for my project.

For the creation process, I was faced a technical problem. The problem

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was about the program which wasn’t work for each of my computer, so I needed to

redo my brochure by using another program. Finally the problem was all solved and I

had done my product successfully.

Evaluation of the product:

I think that my product was quite a meaningful product, but it was just an

average piece of work. I think that there were also many improvements which I could

try in future. I could add more information in my brochure by adding some telephone

numbers and organization’s website that let the people with shopaholicism problem to

look for help and the shopaholics could get their treatment more quickly.

In the future, I won’t make the brochure anymore if I will do my product again.

Since I think the brochure is not so attractive for people to look at. For next time,

maybe I would make a video for advertising the shopaholicism. Also helping

shopaholics or letting others know about shopaholicism. The video would be used in

commercial purpose for advertising about shopaholicism.

Did I achieve my goal?

I have achieved my goal. My goal is to help people understand and identify

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shopaholicism, to help shopaholics. For finishing my product, I think I had already

achieved my goal, because brochures could let people know about more information

of something, and my brochure is to let people know more about shopaholicism and

shopaholics. Once people look at my brochure, they will know more about this kind of

psychological sickness. People will find a way to help their friends or themselves

from becoming a shopaholic or help others to find a way to deal with shopaholicism.

Therefore from the result of my survey, after people had read my brochure, they think

they had known more about shopaholicism, and they now know how to identify

shopaholic and understood why they had become shopaholic.

Conclusion

What I learnt:

I had learnt many aspects in this personal project. I had also improved many

skills that I had learnt before doing this personal project. I had learnt how to be

organized with information, because if I don’t learn to be organize with my researches

it would be very hard for me to know if I had research this information before and I

would keep researching the same information, so it would be a wasting of my time.

I had also learnt to be independent, because this project was a personal

project so I needed to do most of the works by myself and I couldn’t rely on others by

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finishing all the work for me. I do all my work personally, and no one is doing for me.

By doing this personal project, I had learnt a lot of useful skills and aspects. In

future, I think that it should be very useful by learning all those aspects while doing

this project.

Instead of the skills that I learned from doing this project, I also learn many

things of shopaholic. After doing this project, I know shopaholicism is not just a

health problem and shopaholic becomes like this because there were some problem in

their mind. Now I know shopaholicism is a psychiatric problem, and shopaholicism

happens because they were over stress. I also learned ways to help shopaholic to cure

this problem.

Possible improvement:

Although I had learnt a lot of aspects and things of my topic, while doing my

personal project, there are still many improvements that I needed to do. I think the

biggest possible improvement that I could make when doing another project is time

management. Whereas when I am doing my project, I am always a bit behind

schedule. If it is not behind schedule, I am always rushing my work a few days before

dead line. A good school work needed time for doing, so if I want to do a better work

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next time, I will need a better time management for a better work result.

Bibliography
"Am I a Shopaholic?" WiseGEEK: clear answers for common questions. Web. 02 Aug. 2009.
<http://www.wisegeek.com/am-i-a-shopaholic.htm>.

Bryner, Jeanna. "Are you a shopaholic? Scientists devise new test - Behavior- msnbc.com."
Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science,
Technology, Local, US & World News- msnbc.com. 22 Sept. 2008. Web. 06 Aug. 2009.
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26840446/>.

"Cityfile: Shopaholicism: Are You Afflicted?" Cityfile: New York. 23 Sept. 2008. Web. 11 Aug.
2009. <http://cityfile.com/dailyfile/2008>.

Confessions of a Shopaholic. By Sophie Kinsella. Perf. Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter,
John Goodman, Joan Cusack and John Lithgow. Jerry Bruckheimer Films, 2009. DVD.

"Dealing with Compulsive Shopping." Am Vicious. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.

<http://www.amvicious.com/dealing-with-compulsive-shopping/>.

Hall, Stephanie. "Are you a shopaholic? Quiz and facts on compulsive shopping." Essortment
Articles: Free Online Articles on Health, Science, Education & More... 2002. Web. 03 Nov.
2009. <http://www.essortment.com/all/shopaholic_rxfm.htm>.

"Health 24 - Mind, Other." Health24.com. Web. 12 Aug. 2009.

<http://www.health24.com/mind/Other/1284-1303,25860.asp>.

Kinsella, Sophie. Shopaholic Abroad. United Kingdom, 2001. Print.

Lee, Colleen. "Con women jailed after $728,000 swindle." The Starndard [Hong Kong] 26
Jan. 2010. Print.

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Moy, Pasty. "Shopaholic Pays The Price." The Starndard [Hong Kong] 12 Jan. 2010: A3. Print.

Ramsay, Andrea. "Diagnosis Shopaholic: 'a psychiatric problem'" The Review. 21 Nov. 2006.
Web. 19 Aug. 2009. <http://www.udreview.com/2.1980/diagnosis-shopaholic-a-psychiatric-
problem-1.140867#>.

"Shopaholicism." The Elephant Flies at Night. Web. 10 Aug. 2009.

<http://theelephantfliesatnight.blogspot.com/2009/05/shopaholicism.html>.

"Shopaholic Test." Queendom.com: Tests, Tests, Tests and more Tests, The biggest testing
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related tests. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.
<http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=726>.

"Some Psychiatrists See 'Shopaholic' As a Diagnosis - washingtonpost.com."

Washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines.
13 Oct. 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101201812_2.html>.

譚莉英. "傾談達人：購物狂 -." 東方日報. Web. 07 Aug. 2009.

<http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/lifestyle/20090417/00326_001.html>.

"天生購物狂 情緒難自控 -." Yahoo! 新聞. 12 Jan. 2010. Web. 20 Jan. 2010.
<http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/100111/3/g2iv.html#>.

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<http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/091214/4/fnft.html>.

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<http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/090920/4/ebhl.html>.

"得奬的事 要買快買!失心瘋購物狂!." 得奬的事. TVBS 歡樂台. Taiwan, 19 Aug. 2009.

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最愛女人購物狂. Dir. 韋家輝. Perf. 官恩娜,張栢芝,劉青雲,陳小春,徐小鳳. 2006. DVD.

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 Appendix
This was the survey that I give out for proofing my product does help
me to achieve my goal.

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20