Confirm that shifting discretionary spending from material goods (clothes) to experiences (concerts) will bring greater happiness, satisfaction, & gratitude, and lower levels of purchase related regret

Barton, Belinda and Zlatevska, Natalina and van Laer, Tom, In Pursuit of Happiness: A Meta-Analysis on the Experiential Advantage (February 22, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3347446

Abstract: Is it possible to buy happiness? Prior research suggests that shifting discretionary spending from material goods such as clothes to experiences such as concerts will bring greater happiness, satisfaction, and gratitude, and lower levels of purchase related regret. Other research, however, provides evidence for the benefits of purchasing and consuming material goods rather than experiences. We identify 175 effect sizes from 30 primary papers representing 33,237 consumer transactions that compare experiences and material goods in the context of happiness, satisfaction, gratitude, and regret for inclusion in our meta-analysis. Our results show that there is an unequivocal advantage to consuming experiences rather than material goods, but valence of the purchase, median value of the purchase, and the social nature of the consumption episode moderate this effect. In addition, results show that the experimental design used when testing hypotheses also moderates the effect. In contrast to existing literature we find no significant effect of whether the purchase is an experiential product, a gift, or whether the purchase is a real or hypothetical purchase scenario. Our findings help synthesize current literature and provide support for researchers looking to explore and extend knowledge on the experiential advantage.

Keywords: experiences, experiential advantage, happiness, satisfaction, meta-analysis
JEL Classification: M31