Black Friday ads are successful when they convince us that we would be stupid not to take advantage of a "bargain" and will deeply regret not taking advantage of that "bargain" in the allegedly very, very limited time that "bargain" exists. A truly successful ad will convince us to buy something we didn't even know we wanted and aren't at all sure we need because of the discounted price; if it looks like enough of a "steal," we'll buy it now and figure out whether we want or need it later. The IMPORTANT thing is to GET it before someone else does and we are left with that heavy blanket of regret that comes with the sense of Lost Opportunity. These days the cool kids call this Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO.
In short, the psychology of Black Friday is Buy Now, Think Later, and encourages to do something that Capitalism pretty much always encourages us to do- follow our first impulse, which is to consume. It's just sold to us more aggressively on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I know people who consider that day to be every bit as much a holiday as that Thursday of food, family and football which serves as Black Friday Eve.
On Black Friday, it's especially easy to forget an old piece of advice another part of the world: Two Indian Elephants for a quarter is a good deal, if you have a quarter and you need two Indian Elephants. Otherwise, not so much. But I imagine that a whole lot of people will be stocking up on Indian Elephants a few Fridays from now, because impulse buying is the favorite past time of people who can't stop complaining about inflation; square that circle if you can.
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