Why people love waiting in line for hours to buy stuff

Apparently, stronger psychological forces are at work, at least when it comes to a certain breed of shopper. “The shared experience of waiting is part of what’s driving consumer satisfaction,” according to the experts cited in a MarketWatch story. Instead of the communal suffering in a wait to get through an airport TSA checkpoint, waiting outside an Apple Store for the latest iWhatever, or camping out on a Best Buy sidewalk before Black Friday, has become a giddy, exciting experience shared by those willingly joining in.

Being surrounded by like-minded consumers, who have also decided that it makes sense to wait in line, is a sign that you’re not alone—and that your choices on what to buy and how long it’s worth standing around to buy it are sound:

[It’s] a concept known as “social proof.” And that holds true even in the face of considerable logic to the contrary; a name-brand television, for example, is actually more expensive on Black Friday than on several other holiday-season shopping days…