To do or to have, now or later? The preferred consumption profiles of material and experiential purchases

Abstract

Extending previous research on the hedonic benefits of spending money on doing rather than having, this paper investigates when people prefer to consume experiential and material purchases. We contend that the preferred timing of consumption tends to be more immediate for things (like clothing and gadgets) than for experiences (like vacations and meals out). First, we examine whether consumers exhibit a stronger preference to delay consumption of experiential purchases compared to material goods. When asked to make choices about their optimal consumption times, people exhibit a relative preference to have now and do later. In the next set of studies, we found that this difference in preferred consumption led participants to opt for a lesser material item now over a superior item later, but to wait for a superior experiential purchase rather than settle for a lesser experience now. This tendency is due to the fact that consumers derive more utility from waiting for experiences than from waiting for possessions. Finally, we provide evidence that these preferences affect people's real-world decisions about when to consume.

We’ll Always Have Paris

“…We would contend that, in this respect, Rick Blaine is unlike most consumers-at least when it comes to experiences. Consistent with the idea that people savor the wait for experiential purchases, Kumar and Gilovich (2014c) recently found that whereas material purchases tend to prompt a "give-it-to-me-now" mind-set, consumers often prefer to delay their consumption of experiences. This makes them more patient when it comes to experiential consumption: when faced with intertemporal tradeoffs, they tend to prefer a better experience later than a lesser experience now-a pattern that is not true for comparable material purchases.…”

“…As a result, with a few exceptions (Carter & Gilovich, 2010;Kumar & Gilovich, 2014c;Kumar, Killingsworth, et al, 2014;Nicolao et al, 2009;Weidman & Dunn, 2014), nearly all studies to date have examined people's retrospective evaluations of material and experiential purchases. This dovetails with research on psychological well-being generally, which has tended to focus on global, retrospective evaluations of happiness rather than in-the-moment experiences of pleasure (Kahneman & Riis, 2005).…”

The beach, the bikini, and the best buy: Replies to Dunn and Weidman, and to Schmitt, Brakus, and Zarantonello

“…In some studies, furthermore, we have coded purchases in terms of subjective appeal, and our results are also not an artifact of participants thinking of inherently more appealing experiences than possessions. Finally, many of the effects reported in this program of research—more satisfaction derived from experiences than from possessions, more regrets of inaction for experiences rather than possessions, fewer comparisons to other purchases when it comes to experiences rather than possessions—have been obtained when the very same purchase is framed in either material or experiential terms (Carter & Gilovich, 2010, 2012; Kumar & Gilovich, under review‐c; Mann & Gilovich, in preparation; Rosenzweig & Gilovich, 2012). Participants are clearly not thinking of an extraordinary experience and a mundane material item in these studies.…”

Research Progress on the Influence of Materialism and Its Interventions

“…In addition, gratitude and learning mindfulness skills are possible to reduce materialist goals and mitigate the negative effects of materialism (Polak & McCullough, 2006;Wang et al, 2017a). Some studies have also found that allocating disposable money to experiential consumption (tourism, watching performances) will be more enjoyable, satisfaction and happiness than investing in material wealth (clothing, jewelry) (Kumar & Gilovich, 2016). This is because experience buyers mainly evaluate material wealth based on their functional utility and the satisfac-Psychology tion of basic human needs.…”