Washington - Money can only buy you happiness if you spend it right. Research has shown people value “experiences” like holidays and fancy meals more than material goods like cars and clothes.
In a new study published in Psychological Science, researchers report that consumers actually enjoy waiting for experiences more, too.
In the first part of the study, titled Waiting for Merlot 97 students were asked to imagine one type of purchase or another and rate their feelings as more like impatience or excitement.
While they mostly reported positive feelings across the board, things like concert tickets and holidays were described as more exciting to think about than laptops and clothes, which the subjects were impatient to acquire.
Another portion of the study questioned 2 266 adults on their iPhones at random times, asking them if they were thinking about a future purchase at that moment (about 20 percent of the time, they were). Thinking about experiential purchases made them happier than when they’d not been thinking about any purchases at all, but a material goods purchase didn’t move them from their baseline mood.
This makes sense if you think about it: A material good is something we’ll use until it’s obsolete, but an experience is something we always know will be ephemeral. When we savour the anticipation of an experience, we’re turning the wait into part of the experience.
On the other hand, waiting for the new iPhone feels like nothing but time wasted with an old one.
The researchers suggest that focusing more on experiences could be the key to happiness.
Science like this can help inform your choices, but it could have broader applications, too.
“Our research is also important to society,” Cornell University psychology researcher and study author Thomas Gilovich said “because it suggests that overall wellbeing can be advanced by providing an infrastructure that affords experiences like parks, trails, beaches – as much as it does material consumption.” – The Washington Post