Can money buy happiness if spent correctly?
Can money buy happiness if spent correctly?
From vanguard email:
If you're looking for happiness, you might find more of it by doing stuff rather than buying stuff.
That's the conclusion of a 2009 psychology study that compared college students' satisfaction levels with purchases of things (clothes, for example) versus purchases of experiences (concerts, for instance).*
Over the past 35 years, research has suggested that additional money doesn't make people much happier beyond a certain point. Once the basic needs are met (clothes, food, shelter), increased income increases happiness only slightly.
"While the pursuit of money for its own sake may not lead to happiness, it may be that how a person uses their money can have an impact on their overall level of well being," according to the study's authors, Ryan T. Howell, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, and Graham Hill, a graduate student at the university.
To test this thesis, the authors recruited 154 students from the psychology department at San Francisco State University to answer a lengthy series of questions about recent purchases. Roughly half were asked to focus on recent purchases of an experience. The rest were asked to focus on the purchase of a possession.
According to the study, students who purchased an experience were more likely to say it made them happy and was money well-spent. The positive feelings for experiences held up regardless of the amount spent or the student's income, according to the researchers.
Treasured memories
Why would the purchase of experiences rate more highly than the purchase of things? Here are a few ideas:
Experiences don't get old. You can always laugh about the rafting trip where your best friend fell out of the boat. On the other hand, enjoyment of possessions has been shown to decrease over time. A big-screen TV will stop being special sooner or later and just be your TV.
Experiences can be shared. You can bring your family with you on a hike through a national forest. You can tell the story about watching the space shuttle launch at any party you attend. Experiences give you the chance to strengthen interpersonal bonds and form new ones. A fancy gold bracelet may be a conversation starter, but a great story can be a better one.
Experiences are unique. People are less likely to subject experiences to comparison. There may have been a lot of people on the cruise. But you're the only one who saw the shooting star while enjoying a midnight dip in the hot tub. The natural tendency is to compare one’s possessions to others. Your enjoyment of a new car could be greatly reduced if your neighbor buys a better car.
Experiences can't be lost. You might always remember seeing the orchestra perform the 1812 Overture in the park with fireworks and cannons. If you buy a luxury watch and lose it, you're left with nothing but regret.
What you can do
When deciding how to spend your money, it's a good idea to consider what you’ll get out of the purchase. As we learn more and more about how people's brains work, we're learning how to anticipate our feelings.
You might expect the purchase of a new possession to make you happy. It may well do so. On the other hand, there's a good chance spending money on a great experience will make you even happier.
So if you have a choice between buying a new pair of shoes or a pair of concert tickets, the concert tickets may bring you more human interaction, a sense of being alive, and happiness. Unless, of course, your current shoes have holes in their soles. In that case, the warmth of a new pair of shoes may bring you greater happiness-or dry socks at least.
*The mediators of experiential purchases: Determining the impact of psychological needs satisfaction and social comparison, by Ryan T. Howell, Ph.D. and Graham Hill, San Francisco State University, The Journal of Positive Psychology, November 2009
Notes:
This article is for informational purposes only.
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