A Great Experience or a Great Possession

To Do or to Have? That Is the Question

Leaf Van Boven
University of Colorado at Boulder

Thomas Gilovich
Cornell University

Do experiences make people happier than material possessions? In two surveys, respondents from various demographic groups indicated that experiential purchases?those made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience?made them happier than material purchases. In a follow-up laboratory experiment, participants experienced more positive feelings after pondering an experiential purchase than after pondering a material purchase. In another experiment, participants were more likely to anticipate that experiences would make them happier than material possessions after adopting a temporally distant, versus a temporally proximate, perspective. The discussion focuses on evidence that experiences make people happier because they are more open to positive reinterpretations, are a more meaningful part of one's identity, and contribute more to successful social relationships.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 85, No. 6, 1193?1202,

This article can be accessed directly at:
/drdean/408/60714.html