Consumers frequently engage in activities with others, such as visiting an art gallery with a friend or going to a sports match with a family member, and they tend to assume that sharing experiences with another person will make them more enjoyable (Caprariello and Reis 2013; Ratner and Hamilton 2015). However, navigating a shared experience – making decisions about pacing, sequencing and interacting with another person as the experience unfolds – can take consumers’ attention away from the activity, potentially reducing their enjoyment. In a series of studies in which consumers engage in real consumption experiences, we show that lack of clarity about a partner’s interests can distract consumers, making it difficult for them to focus on the shared activity and reducing their enjoyment of shared experiences relative to solo experiences. Notably, simple interventions can increase clarity of a partner’s interests and consumers’ enjoyment of shared activities, providing tools for service providers who want to retain customers and benefit from positive word-of-mouth.

Kumar and Epley (2023) argue that people underinvest in spending time, effort, and money on other people, and that consumers' own well‐being would improve from increased “sociality.” We pose two questions to enhance understanding of the relationship between sociality and efforts to benefit one's own well‐being: (1) when will other‐oriented consumption promote versus hinder consumers' own well‐being, and (2) what leads consumers to embrace versus forego efforts to improve their well‐being (i.e., self‐care) that does not involve sociality? We propose that the degree to which the consumer is concerned about incorporating others' preferences, the magnitude of resources involved, and the temporal dynamics of consumption will be relevant factors in addressing these two questions. Future research to explore the proposed three factors and other factors will be important for consumers who seek to improve their well‐being as well as marketers who seek to promote it.

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