IndexAbstractIntroductionLink Between Material Possessions and HappinessExperiential and Material PossessionsHedonic Benefits of Experiential and Material PurchasesConclusionWorks CitedAbstractThis article focuses on prior work on purchase-related happiness. By analyzing numerous studies and experiments by researchers on consumer behavior, it aims to explain the author's main hypothesis: happiness derived from experiences is superior to happiness obtained from material goods. Furthermore, the conversational value of experiential purchases is higher than that of material purchases and this is one of the reasons why individuals obtain greater hedonic benefits from experiences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay IntroductionOur lives are full of decisions we must make to make them "better" in our own terms. One of the most complex and challenging decisions is how to spend our money. How much to save every month and how much to spend on our not-so-basic needs like a new home stereo. This has been one of the biggest dichotomies in people's daily lives. There is the desire to be happier underlying every single decision made by individuals. People's lives can be enriched by redirecting expenditures from things that provide fleeting joy to those that make more substantial and lasting contributions to well-being (Gilovich & Kumar & Jampol, 2014). When considering the transformation of consumers through purchasing (Mick 2006), it makes sense to consider not only what leads to consumer decline (debt, drug addiction, etc.) but also what leads to a particularly happy life (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). In this article we will explore the world of expenses and their nature. Because there are other decisions to make even after you overcome the larger dichotomy. Yes, you will spend money. As Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) said, you would rather “do” something with that money, like go skiing, or “have” something or things like shiny new jewelry or designer T-shirts. we will further investigate what underlies people's decisions about material goods and experiences. Previous studies show that happiness derived from experiences is greater than happiness obtained from material possessions. This leads us to examine the possible incentives that dominate these results. One of the most emphasized reasons according to researchers is the value of the positive social impact generated by a positive experience. As reported by Bastos and Brucks (2017) it is believed that conversations about experiences are more likely to promote social bonds. In other words, a trip to the Himalayas or a famous Broadway show is more newsworthy than new Italian home decor and will project a positive social image. After having mentioned previous research on the role of spending in the pursuit of happiness, we will analyze the two types of purchases. Finally, we will be able to draw attention to the differential utility of history derived from purchases. Link Between Material Possessions and Happiness According to consumer behavior researchers, there are two types of goods that consumers project different gains by obtaining. When purchasing hedonic goods, consumers aim for enjoyment. However, utilitarian goods are those acquired with the intention of achieving practical purposes. Consumer choices are guided by utilitarian and hedonic considerations. Consumers choosing between new automobiles, for example, may care about utilitarian characteristics (e.g., consumptionof fuel) as well as hedonic attributes (e.g., sporty design) (Dhar & Wertenboch, 2000). In the words of Strahilevitz and Myers (1998), hedonic and pleasure-oriented consumption is motivated primarily by the desire for sensual pleasure, fantasy, and fun (e.g., a week in the Bahamas). In Western culture, such products are often labeled “frivolous” or “decadent.” Utilitarian and goal-oriented consumption is motivated primarily by the desire to satisfy a basic need or perform a functional task (e.g., consuming a bottle of dish soap or a box of garbage bags). In Western culture, such products are often labeled as “practical” or “necessary.” This was one of the famous dichotomies that inspired Van Boven and Gilovich in 2003 to examine the deeper happiness related to purchasing. The second distinction concerned consumer motivations. Extrinsic goals, which “depend on the contingent reactions of others,” and intrinsic goals, express “desires congruent with the tendencies of achievement and growth natural to human beings” (Kasser & Ryan, 1996, p. 280). Of course, these distinctions are not precise since it is still difficult to identify consumer goods and goals as hedonic or utilitarian and extrinsic or intrinsic. However, they made sense and have proven useful to consumer behavior researchers. Experiential Possessions vs. Material Assets There is an ongoing debate about discretionary income and where and how to spend it. From early times philosophers, economists and psychologists have expressed their opinions on this topic. Aristotle (4th century BC) observed that "...men imagine that external goods are the cause of happiness" but maintained that "free time in itself gives pleasure, happiness and enjoyment in life" (trans. 1996, pp. 185 and 197). As we approach the present day, with Hume (1737/1975) and through Scitovsky (1976) and Frank (1985), the sentiment has been that individuals will be happier if they spend their money on experiences (e.g., theater, concerts, and holidays) compared to material purchases (e.g., luxury cars, larger houses, and gadgets) (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). They all said that experiential purchases make people happier than material purchases. But until Van Boven and Gilovich's research in 2003 there was no empirical test of this so-called experience recommendation by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman in 2009. According to Van Boven and Gilovich it has been a challenge to clearly define the distinction between which purchases are considered as experiential and as material. Almost everyone would consider a hike in the Himalayas an experience and a new Patek-Phillipe watch a possession. But what about a flat-screen TV or a car? Are they goods or vehicles of experiences? (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). With the help of their experiments and the usefulness of the general distinction they indicated that experiential purchases are those made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience: an event or series of events that one experiences. Tangible purchases are those made with the primary intention of acquiring a material good: a tangible object that is kept in one's possession. Van Boven and Gilovich (2003) stated that materialistic people tend to report lower subjective well-being than non-materialistic people. People who strongly agree with statements such as “Some of life's most important accomplishments include acquiring material possessions” and “Buying things gives me a lot of pleasure” report lower levels of satisfaction with life than people who do not agree with these statements (Belk, 1985; Therefore, if iMaterialists value material purchase, can material purchase bring them more happiness? The study by Millar and Thomas (2009) shows that materialism regulates the relationship between the type of purchase and happiness: materialists derive more pleasure from material purchasing, but for experiential purchasing, this does not influence the level of relationship between materialism and happiness, that is, regardless of the level of materialism, experiential purchasing always brings more happiness than material purchasing (Zining & Maolin, 2015). In their 2003 research, Van Boven and Gilovich carried out 4 experiments which were the starting point for subsequent research on the topic. First, they asked respondents to think about their most recent experiential or material purchase of more than $100 and to rate how happy the purchase made them. Furthermore, with a follow-up question they asked how they feel about their purchase at that moment. They aimed to understand whether they value experiences more and also think that experiences are better investments than material goods. As anticipated, respondents who were asked to evaluate an experiential purchase stated a higher level of happiness resulting from that purchase. They also indicated that experiential purchases are considered “money better spent” and material purchases as “money spent could be better spent elsewhere.” The results also showed their general understanding of what counts as an experience and what counts as a material purchase. There was minimal overlap between the two types of purchase descriptions. In the second study we wanted to broaden the audience and examine the situation in different demographic groups. Accordingly, they indicated that reporting that experiences make you happier than possessions is the rule and not the exception. That's not to say there weren't demographic differences: Women, younger individuals, and those who lived in urban or suburban communities were slightly more likely to indicate that the experiences made them happier than men, older adults, and those who lived in rural communities. (Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003). They then examined the situation over time, assuming that remembering experiential purchases would make respondents happier than remembering material purchases. Respondents were asked to describe an experiential or material purchase, then asked to return after a week to read their description and reflect on their purchase once again. The results were as expected: those who experiment to remember an experiential purchase declared a higher level of happiness than those who experiment to remember a material purchase. Some researchers (e.g., Kahneman, 1999) recommend that measures of happiness include not only the valence and intensity of feelings, but also the frequency with which individuals experience those feelings. The results of this experiment indicate that thinking about experiential purchases gives people more pleasure than thinking about material purchases; but do people also think more often about their experiential purchases (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003)? In light of this question they did another experiment. This time the respondents were asked which purchase they thought about most often. “A clear majority (83%, 95% confidence interval (71%-94%) indicated that they “mentally revisited” their experiential purchase more often than their material purchase. This suggests that thinking about experiences not only makes people more happy than thinking about similar things. material goods, they also think more often about their experiences”. At this point, Nicolao, Irwin and Goodman (2009) introduced the well-known term in thehappiness research hedonic treadmill which is driven by hedonic adaptation (Frederick and Loewenstein 1999), which refers to the decrease of a hedonic response over time. Better things become less good over time, and worse things become better. They also think that the level of hedonic adaptation differs with the type of purchase (positive). ) assumes that people may tend to adapt more quickly to material purchases because experiential (positive) purchases remain open to positive reinterpretations (Mitchell et al. 1997). This situation causes the happiness derived from previous experiential purchases to last longer than from previous material purchases. This led them to look more deeply into the nature of purchasing. According to them, Van Boven and Gilovich's results were only valid for positive purchases but not for negative ones. In their 2003 research Van Boven and Gilovich asked respondents to describe a positive purchase they made recently. This time the questions from Nicolao, Irwin and Goodman were more neutral in terms of outcome valence. The results were as expected: the experience recommendation was valid for positive purchases, as previous studies show. If the purchase had not been successful, however, the effect would not have lasted. Adapting the model for negative purchases, there was no significant difference in happiness between experiential and material purchases (Nicolao & Irwin & Goodman, 2009). So, consequently, the study by Nicolao, Irwin, and Goodman (2009) again demonstrated that positive experiential purchases Purchases lead to a higher level of happiness for consumers than positive material purchases, just as the study by Van Boven and Gilovich in 2003. They also found that the opposite is true for negative purchases: negative experiential purchases make consumers unhappier than negative material purchases. Now, if we take a step back and continue analyzing positive signings like Van Boven and Gilovich, we can see that there are some reasons behind the experience recommendation that are related to human nature. Van Boven and Gilovich discussed that there were three main causes: experiences are more open to positive reinterpretations, they are more central to one's identity, and they have greater social value. The following research has gathered around this model. We would like to discuss the causes of this situation by the theoretical explanation made by Zining and Ye in 2015. According to Zining and Ye (2015), the first theory to explain the experience recommendation is the construal level theory (CLT) pointed out that L People's interpretation of events will change with the perception of the psychological distance of events such as temporal distance, spatial distance. In terms of long-distance psychological events, people tend to use a high-level construction, that is, to characterize an incident from abstract, fundamental and partial characteristics; regarding short-distance psychological events, people tend to use a low-level construction, such as that of the concrete, and superficial features to characterize local events (Liberman & Trope, 1998). In short, as supported by the experiments of Van Boven and Gilovich, as the temporal distance increases, experiential purchasing has a higher level of interpretation than material purchasing and becomes more beautiful, leaving consumers happy and joyful (Zining & Ye, 2015).Zining and Ye (2015) discussed that experiences have closer contact with the self, just like Van Boven and Gilovich (2003). A person's life is the sum of his life experiences, how to goto school, getting married, having children, etc. A rich life experience creates a colorful life (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003). Studies also show that people are more likely to introduce themselves and talk about themselves through experiential purchases. They are also less willing to forget their experiences. Therefore, the experience is closer to the individual's self-concept and self-definition (Dunn et al., 2011). social comparisons, which can reduce the negative effects of social comparison, so people can achieve a high level of happiness (Carter & Gilovich, 2010, 2014) According to Zining and Ye (2015), there is a social comparison aspect in the recommendation of experience. With the help of previous research they argue that experiences are less likely to cause social comparisons. Because they are personal and cannot unify comparison criteria. Compared with objects, experience is more unique, its comparability is relatively small (Carter & Gilovich, 2010). The study by Carter and Gilovich (2010) showed that if respondents were asked to imagine that another companion purchased the same product in a better condition and at the same price. In the scenario, one group of subjects was purchasing material goods and the other group was making an experiential purchase. In the end, the group with experiential purchases declared a higher level of happiness than the other. As we mentioned, the uniqueness of individual experiences makes social comparison more difficult. Another study (Van Boven, 2005) also confirmed the above results, the researchers let the subjects imagine a disappointing experiential or material purchase, subjects who imagine that the experiential purchase experience less regret and are more willing to adopt similar purchasing behaviors in the future. According to self-determination theory (SDT), human beings have three types of intrinsic basic psychological needs: needs for autonomy, needs for competence, and needs for relationships ( Deci and Ryan, 2000 ). Some researchers believe that the reason why more people feel happy is experience than goods, because the experience and the process itself have been subjected to sociability, can increase the degree of interpersonal intimacy, promote individual development of social relationships successful (Carter & Gilovich, 2014; Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003), better promote one of the three types of basic psychological needs: the need for relationship (Zining & Ye, 2015). In relation to people's psychological needs, experiences are easier to share and from which a positive social image for the individual can be derived. Compared with material purchase, experiential experience is easier to share with others, attract the attention of others, thus promoting individual pleasure (Bastos, 2012; Van Boven et al., 2010). A final reason why experiences make people happier than possessions is that they are more pleasant to talk about and more effectively promote successful social relationships, which are closely associated with happiness (e.g., Diener & Seligman, 2002). ShoppingWe humans are social beings. We come into the world as a result of the actions of others. We survive here dependent on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment in our lives when we do not benefit from the activities of others. For this reason, it is not surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Numerous previous research states that humans are highly social creatures (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). This characteristic of human beings influences their daily lives by questioning their decisions. As we discussed earlier in this article, behavioral researchersConsumers have demonstrated that experiences have greater hedonic value than material goods. Once again we have analyzed the causes of this recommendation on experience. One of the strongest reasons behind this is that people value social relationships more. To improve their interactions with other people they often tend to share topics that help them build a positive social image. Communicating about oneself or something relevant to oneself is a fundamental part of human nature and a ubiquitous behavior (Argo, White, and Dahl 2006; Berger and Schwartz 2011). At this point, some recent studies test and declare that experiential purchases have a greater conversational value than material purchases. Conversational value is defined here as the likelihood that the consumer will talk about a purchase in a social interaction. Over time, a purchase with high conversational value is talked about more often than a purchase with low conversational value (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Researchers have highlighted the important role of conversational value in experience recommendation. They report that experiences differ in some ways from material goods: self-narrative provided by closeness to self, social approval, interest associated with uniqueness. Because of these notions, individuals think that sharing their experiences can have a more positive impact on their social bonds. Conversing with others also allows the teller to obtain support and confirmation (Gatignon & Robertson, 1986), helps the teller to learn (Bandura, 1977) and make sense of the shared topic (Finkenauer & Rime, 1998), allows those who report reconsidering -experience the topic (Gable et al., 2004), and prolong the duration of the positive effects of the topic (Verduyn & Van Mechelen & Tuerlinckx, 2011) (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). To scientifically prove their hypothesis, Bastos and Brucks (2017) did some experiments. In one of them the subjects were asked to imagine a first bond with a person. One group of subjects was given a text stating that they were highly motivated to create a social bond with each other (high-relationship group). The second group was the control group, so they had a neutral text in terms of the relationship-motivation condition. The third group was given a text that said they were not interested in forming social bonds with the other person (low rapport group). The results showed that when people are motivated to create a social bond with another person they naturally prefer to talk about an experience they have had. If they have no incentive to create a social bond, they become indifferent between talking about a possession or an experience. Participants in the control condition who chose to share an item motivated their choice primarily on the ease of thinking of something to say about the purchase (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Kumar and Gilovich (2015), introduced hedonic adaptation into research on the importance of conversational value. Experiences may suffer less from adaptation, in part because they are more likely to stimulate, and in turn enrich, conversations and narratives (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Talking to others also allows us to relive experiences long after they have happened. In this sense, experiential purchases are gifts that keep on giving (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). They also indicate that people are inclined to “improve” their stories by telling the most interesting parts, sometimes even distorting the experience a little. Because experiences are more tied to people's identities, people are also more likely to distort their experiences in the service of maintainingself-esteem and self-improvement (Dunning, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988). To prove their hypothesis, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) performed some tests. In one of their experiments, they tested what would happen to subjects' happiness level if they were unable to talk about a purchase after it was made. What would be more upsetting than not being able to talk about a material purchase or an experiential one? As a result, experiential and material purchases did not differ in price but did differ in how annoying it would be not to be able to talk about them (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). Respondents said that not being able to talk about their experiences would bother them more than not being able to talk about their material possessions. This shows that conversational value has an importance for the hedonic benefits derived from a purchase and also that experiential purchases have greater narrative utility than owned goods. In another study, Kumar and Gilovich (2015) examined the real-life situation in a laboratory setting. This time the subjects were asked to come individually to the laboratory and list 10 of their purchases (5 experiential purchases and 5 material purchases). Then they were asked to record a video and talk about each of their purchases that they had listed. This way they would be ready to talk about each one in detail. Then they were asked to talk about only a single purchase listed. The results were as expected: in the video the participants discussed their experiential purchases marginally compared to material purchases. Additionally, when asked to choose a single purchase to talk about, 80% of participants chose to talk about an experience. People are therefore more likely to choose one experiential purchase to talk about, even when several material and experiential purchases of each type are easily accessible as potential conversation topics (Kumar & Gilovich, 2015). A very similar experiment done by Bastos and Brucks (2017). This time, the researchers asked 113college students to think about two recent purchases they made for each type of purchase; experiential and material and to write them down. Then the students were asked to choose one of their purchases they had listed to discuss with another person. This experiment demonstrates that when it comes to conversations related to purchasing, people systematically prefer to converse about a lived experience rather than about a material object they own. The fact that nearly three-quarters of the Experiment 3 sample (i.e., 73%) selected an experience to share indicates the higher conversational value of experiences compared to that of objects (Bastos & Brucks, 2017). Yamaguchi et al. (2015), tested the relationship between purchases and their influence on social relationships. They asked 1,523 Japanese college students about their summer break purchases and their level of post-break happiness. The results show that students who made an experiential purchase during the break indicated a higher level of happiness than those who made a luxury purchase. They also explained their level of happiness from the window of social relationships. Thus, according to this study, college students place more value on their experiences because they value students' social connections more than material possessions. Making an experiential purchase contributed to greater happiness among respondents by positively influencing their social relationships (Yamaguchi et al., 2015). Nowadays, people spend a lot of time on social media sharing, liking, commenting or, 17(3), 295-318.