Experiences Won't Make You Happier Than Possessions

You will be happier if you spend your money on experiences rather than possessions… or so says the modern truism, supposedly proven by psychological science. Researchers call it the “experience recommendation.” 

It sounds good, right? It’s very flattering to a certain class of worldly people who spent their capital on accruing anecdotes. Ah, yes—we who go on retreats in Bali are much happier than the unsophisticated materialistic people who spend money on handbags or whatever. 

It also supports the notion, which occasionally floats around, that wealthy people aren’t really made happy by their fancy possessions, which is comforting if you like to believe that wealthy people are idiots. 

Finally, in the age of climate change, you might think it’s noble to advocate for less materialistic lifestyles and to prompt people to reexamine their purchasing habits. (Although, given the environmental impact of air travel and road trips, experiences may not be what you want people to be buying, if carbon is what you’re worried about.)

But I think that the wisdom advocating experience over “stuff” is far from proven. In fact, I think it’s full of holes. It illustrates one particular failure mode of modern psychology, wherein “science” involves declaring you’ve discovered a truth about human nature after asking people a simplistic set of questions that poorly measure a complicated reality.

Most of life is lived in the unmemorable, in-between moments

The core of evidence behind the experience recommendation is survey data, collected in studies like Van Boven & Gilovich 2003, the original research in this genre. You ask people to recall two purchases: an experiential purpose (dinner, a movie, something like that) or a material purchase (clothing, tools, etc). Then you ask which made them happier. Apparently, if you do that, you will find that people typically say that experiential purposes made them happier—not by a huge amount, but by a noticeable margin.

Isn’t this proof that experiential purchases do make people happier?