On Friday (8/1) at The Atlantic, Rebecca Rosen writes, “It’s been the refrain of behavioral economists … for years: Spend your money on experiences, not things.… That’s true, but it’s not the whole story, argue psychologists Darwin A. Guevarra and Ryan T. Howell in a new paper in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.… Many studies … [neglect] a category of goods: those made in order to have experiences, such as electronics, musical instruments, and sports and outdoors gear. In a series of experiments, Guevarra and Howell find that the latter is the case: experiential goods made people happier, just like the experiences themselves.… A musical instrument, for example, makes possible a sort of human happiness hat trick: Finely tune your skills, get the happiness of mastery (competence); play your heart out, get the happiness of self-expression (autonomy); jam with friends, get the happiness of connecting with others (relatedness). ‘Spend your money on experiences, not things’ remains a good basic rule. But it’s possible to tweak it slightly to better reflect the drivers of human happiness: ‘Spend your money on competence, autonomy, and relatedness.’ That doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but it’ll guide you wisely.”
Posted August 1, 2014
