Over the past few weeks many of us will have been spending time thinking about the perfect gifts to buy our friends and loved ones.  Sadly, many of our purchases, either for ourselves or for others, fail to live up to our expectations.  We suffer from what's known as buyers remorse.

When we're thinking of buying something we tend to think abstractly about the pleasure it will bring.  The further away the purchase is, the more abstract our thinking tends to be.  Sadly, the enjoyment of our purchases often comes from the details, and these are the things we often overlook.

How you can prevent buyers remorse

Research has shown that our happiness comes from the small pleasures in our life rather than the wider circumstances in which we find ourselves.  Of course the flip side is that the small irritations in life are the ones that will give us the hump.

So the key to ensuring our purchases make us as happy as possible the key is to think in as much detail as possible.  Of course this isn't quite as much fun as thinking in abstract terms about all the fun the recipient will have with our gift, but it's much more likely to yield good results.