SHOPLIFTING

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 9

SHOPLIFTING

PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS. Recent eases of shoplifting by women have naturally raised the question as to why such eases are seldom recorded by men, seeing that men have far greater facilities by reason of their numerous pockets for this class of misdemeanour. “The explanation must bo sought m the peculiar nervous organisation of women,” writes a correspondent signing himself ‘Psychologist,’ in the Auckland ‘Star.’ “The nervous system is divided into the sympathetic and the motor. The sympathetic nerves and the motor nerves urc kept iu check by tho norvo of inhibition. .This nerve is acted upon by -the sympathetic nervous system in one or two ways. This is tho! cause of shoplifting. The emotions stirred by the sight of numerous attractions'in drapers’ shops travel along the entire system of the sympathetic nerves till they reach the centre, which is situated about hallway up the spine* The nerve of inhibition would naturally warn a woman of the danger of shoplifting, but this nerve is partly paralysed by the intensity of tho emotions roused by certain classes or goods, mainly those connected with dress and the adornment of the person. Bleu are not similarly affected, lor a very simple reason. An eminent gynecologist lias pointed out that the best way of avoiding certain diseases of tho sympathetic nerve is to come from a long line of business ancestors. Ho says that business men very seldom suffer from any adoetion of the sympathetic nerves. It is because women have been excluded Irom business ior so long that they have developed tho peculiar nervous organisation which leads to shoplifting. Sometimes this same organisation stimulates the nerve of inhibition, and that is why a woman so often realises the danger of telling tho truth more quickly than a man docs, and the inhibitory nerve, which warns her of the danger, connects with the subconscious mind and enables her to tell a more likely lie than the conscious mind of man could invent.”-