A spate of retail therapy is said to be good for boosting your mood, but it turns out spending money doesn’t always buy happiness – especially if you’re materialistic.
Research has found some shoppers, whether they buy material items or life experiences such as tickets to the theatre or holidays, are no happier following the purchase than they were before.
This contradicts previous studies that found spending money on activities to enrich your life creates greater levels of happiness.
The research was carried out by San Francisco State University.
‘Everyone has been told if you spend your money on life experiences, it will make you happier, but we found that isn’t always the case,’ said Ryan Howell, an associate professor of psychology at SF State.
‘Extremely material buyers, who represent about a third of the overall population, are sort of stuck. They’re not really happy with either purchase.’
This is because when material buyers purchase life experiences, they are no happier because the purchase is likely ‘out of line with their personality and values’.
But if they spend on material items, they are not better off either, because others may criticise or look down upon their choices.
‘I’m a baseball fan. If you tell me, ‘Go spend money on a life experience,’ and I buy tickets to a baseball game, that would be authentic to who I am, and it will probably make me happy,’ Howell said.
‘On the other hand, I’m not a big museum guy. If I bought tickets to an art museum, I would be spending money on a life experience that seems like it would be the right choice, but because it’s not true to my personality, I’m not going to be any happier as a result.’
Although the link between experiential purchases and happiness has been well demonstrated, Howell said few studies have examined the types of people who experience no benefits.
To do so, he and his colleagues surveyed shoppers to find out if there were any factors that limited the happiness boost from experiential purchases.
The researchers found that those who tend to spend money on material items reported no happiness boost from experiential purchases.
This is because those purchases did not give them an increased sense of ‘identity expression’ – the belief they bought something that reflected their personality.
‘The results show it is not correct to say to everyone, ‘If you spend money on life experiences you’ll be happier,’ because you need to take into account the values of the buyer,’ said Jia Wei Zhang, the lead author of the study.
Reasons someone may buy a life experience that doesn’t reflect his or her personality include a desire to fit in or spend time with others, according to Zhang.
Researchers did find that material buyers feel closer to friends or family following an experiential purchase.
However, that feeling of closeness was not enough to counter the lack of identity expression and therefore provide the happiness boost.
‘There are a lot of reasons someone might buy something,’ Howell said, ‘but if the reason is to maximise happiness, the best thing for that person to do is purchase a life experience that is in line with their personality.’
