PhronesisWe present a dynamical-systems account of compulsive bargain-hunting—the persistent, anxiety-driven pursuit of discounts, deals, and lowest prices as a primary mode of consumer engagement—situating it as a wrong attractor in the space of spending behavior. The ground state S^0 is defined as calibrated worth-based spending: the disposition to exchange resources for goods and services at prices that accurately reflect subjectively assessed value, without systematic discounting compulsion or price-independent guilt.
We characterize the wrong attractor W as the discount-seeking architecture: a self-reinforcing basin in which the subjective experience of paying full price triggers anticipatory anxiety, full-price transactions are registered as losses rather than fair exchanges, and the deal-finding behavior is pursued for its regulatory function rather than its instrumental value. We distinguish W from rational price-sensitivity and identify the foreclosure of the fair-exchange phenomenology—the felt sense that an exchange is complete and sufficient— as the functional signature of the attractor.
Nine propositions (P1–P9) develop the architecture, basin geometry, reinforcement dynamics, and recovery trajectory. We argue that return to S^0 requires not price recalibration but anxiety reconstitution: restoring the capacity to experience a full-price transaction as a closed, sufficient act rather than a partially failed one.