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“Research carried out at Cornell University has found a way to break this damaging cycle. Psychology professor Thomas Gilovich has shown that we experience the same increase in happiness when we buy something we want and when we go traveling. But — and here’s the most important point — the amount of happiness we derive from our purchase falls over time, whereas the memories of our traveling experience continue to supply us with happiness hormones for much longer.
Going to various kinds of unusual events, going on trips, learning new skills, even extreme sport — all of these are an ideal source of happiness for each and every one of us. A new device or even a new car will eventually become just another ordinary object we own, or will otherwise become old and outdated. Every new memory, on the other hand, becomes a real source of joy that stays with us for our whole lives.” via brightside.me
A wonderful life: experiential consumption and the pursuit of happiness
To live in the developed world is to live in a consumerist society. Although the broader forces that created this society have led to unprecedented material abundance, scholars have maintained that these benefits have come at a significant psychological cost. An important question, then, is how these psychological costs can be minimized. With that in mind, we review research showing that people derive more satisfaction from experiential purchases than material purchases. We then summarize the findings of an extensive program of research on the psychological mechanisms that underlie this difference. This research indicates that experiential purchases provide greater satisfaction and happiness because: (1) Experiential purchases enhance social relations more readily and effectively than material goods; (2) Experiential purchases form a bigger part of a person’s identity; and (3) Experiential purchases are evaluated more on their own terms and evoke fewer social comparisons than material purchases. We conclude by discussing how social policy might be altered to take advantage of the greater hedonic return offered by experiential investments, thus advancing societal well-being.
see full research paper at Journal of Consumer Psychology