The steeper price we pay for tickets and travel changes our standards for a good time
By Joe Pinsker of The WSJ. Excerpts:
"Studies on money and happiness tell us that paying for experiences tends to bring us greater pleasures than buying stuff, because those experiences can deliver payoffs before, during and after they happen.
If a pricey experience can’t live up to its own hype, the answer isn’t to give up on going to shows or traveling. Instead, look for cheaper pleasures, said Amit Kumar, a marketing professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
“You might go to a tasting menu and have an exquisite meal at a fine dining restaurant, but some of the best stories you have might be about the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that you happened across,” Kumar said.
People report enjoying more-expensive purchases more, according to a study in The Journal of Positive Psychology from 2016. The relationship between price and satisfaction isn’t as strong for experiences as it is for material purchases.
“Virtually everyone will get more out of driving a Lexus than a Camry, and more out of driving a Camry than a Corolla,” the researchers wrote. “But a stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Vienna can easily be eclipsed—because of bad weather, bad news from home, or a bad companion—by a stay in Holiday Inn.”
Dissatisfaction is more likely when money is tighter, a 2022 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found. People feel worse about purchases of both things and experiences and write more negative reviews, researchers found. This regret often stems from thinking about all the other ways the money could have been used instead."
"With prices for both material goods and experiences running high, Kumar said, people might be less likely to regret their spending if they shifted more of it to the experience side of the ledger.
Even if outings to concerts or games don’t go as planned, people can mentally reframe them afterward.
“If it ended up raining when you went to see Taylor Swift, that seems like it could be a disappointment,” Kumar said. “But it’s pretty easy for people to find some silver lining there—you know, ‘Wasn’t it funny when we took the train back after the show and everyone was still in their outfits but they were totally drenched?’”"
Related posts:
How Happy Can a Windfall Make You? (2022)
Happiness Is Not What We Think It Is (2022)
More On The Economics Of Gift Giving. (2018)
What Brings More Happiness, More Time Or More Money? (2017, this study found that people that chose more free time over more money tended to be happier)
Do income and happiness tend to go together? Yes, both within and across countries . (2017)
Science proves it: Money really can buy happiness . (2017)
Dagwood Bumpstead Explains The Hedonic Treadmill (2015)
Does Money Buy Happiness? (2011)
Does Wealth Make Us Happier? (2010, maybe wealth buys freedom that makes us happier)
Does Or Can Money Buy Happiness? (2008)
Interesting Book: Stumbling on Happiness (2007)
Does Money Make You Mean? (2007)
Related articles:
Money buys happiness after all (By William Easterly and Laura Freschi, 2011)
The happiness wars (From The Lancet, 2011)
1 comment:
There are some interesting thoughts here with some different truths depending on the reader. Personally, experiences are okay and I can say the same thing for materials. The latter seems to last longer and I am just not that excited to see famous people in real life. Going to Niagara Falls would better a better experience on my behalf rather than a Taylor Swift concert or a Soccer game.
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