Buying cheap airplane tickets, cheap vacation packages, or finding discount hotel rooms tends to make travelers happy. Results from a new study show that peoples satisfaction with experience related purchases, such as vacations, tends to remain much higher over time than purchases of objects, where their satisfaction tends to wane over time.
Life experiences vs. acquiring material possessions results in the greater happiness according to researchers who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Some of the reasons why life experiences are more highly valued are that people tend to:
Second guess themselves more regarding their material purchases, questioning whether they made the best choice.
Appreciate experiences as unique occurrences vs. comparing them to other things.
Find it easier to select an experience than a material object.
Be more disappointed when they discover someone else got a superior deal for a material acquisition than for an experience.
Studies have repeatedly shown that people recalling a material purchase were significantly more likely to be concerned in retrospect about the purchase and less satisfied later on than people remembering experience purchases, such as vacations.
Because material purchases are more easily compared than experiences, material buys typically result in more concern and less happiness than experience purchases, according to Cornell University researchers.
The lesson to be learned is if you are searching for happiness, you are more likely to find it on vacation then in purchasing the latest and greatest flat screen TV or MP3 player.
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