Buying Happiness

[Guest 9339]

Extracted from Straits Times:

Buying experiences can bring happiness

Got some money to spare? Want to make yourself really happy? Then forget the designer threads or that new car you have your eyes on. Pay for an unforgettable experience instead. You may discover that money can, indeed, buy happiness.

A new study suggests that money can make us happy if we spend it on the right things.

It seems that buying life experiences, such as dinner in a restaurant, theatre tickets or even diving in Australia's Great Barrier Reef (above), rather than material possessions like the latest designer handbag, leads to greater happiness for both the buyer and those around them.

The current study, Assistant Professor Ryan Howell told Reuters Health, predicts that those who spend more of their disposable income on life experiences will be happier because of the life experience. Others (presumably those who also partook in the experience) will be happier as well.

Your feelings of well-being and vitality get a bigger boost when you purchase experiences, as opposed to things. You also feel more socially connected he said.

'These findings support an extension of basic need theory, where purchases that increase psychological need satisfaction will produce the greatest well-being,' Prof Howell, an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, noted in a university-issued statement.

He said that he first began thinking about the link between happiness and income in Malaysia in 2003 when he and his wife interviewed poor, indigenous farmers about their wealth, income and life satisfaction.

'After finding evidence that the relation between wealth and life satisfaction was stronger in this sample than for the typical American sample - likely because their money was being used to satisfy physiological needs - I conjectured that when individuals live in affluence, then they would need to spend their income on purchases that would satisfy their psychological needs in order to be happier,' Prof Howell explained.

He investigated the theory with San Francisco State University graduate Graham Hill. They asked an ethnically-diverse group of 154 adults to reflect on a recent experiential or materialistic purchase.

'Both groups were asked to recall a time within the last three months when they had used their money to acquire an experience or item and were asked to write a short paragraph describing the purchase, as well as their feelings and the environmental cues surrounding the purchase,' Prof Howell said.

What they discovered was that participants rated experiential purchases as more likely to be considered money well-spent. They said that it made them and others happy. Furthermore, these feelings were regardless of the income of the person or the amount he had paid for the happy experience.

The researchers concluded that experiences also lead to longer-term satisfaction. 'Purchased experiences provide memory capital,' Prof Howell said. 'We don't tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object.'

I had miss many happy memories of SGMERC.

[Guest SgLaKsa]

Hmmmm interesting.... I wanna sell off my Mercs to buy other experiences which might have more value to my money. kekekekeke... just kidding :bboyspin: