Happy Relationship

Happiness for Sale ?

If money can’t buy true love, at least it can pay for a nice dinner out. But what about happiness? Many scholars studying happiness agree that it cannot: growing incomes don’t make happiness grow. Now there is some evidence that this time-honored conclusion could be wrong. Recent analyses of polling data on life satisfaction across the world suggest that countries may indeed become happier as they grow richer.

Previous theories have suggested that consumers will be happier if they spend their money on experiences such as travel as opposed to material possessions such as automobiles. We test this experience recommendation and show that it may be misleading in its general form. Valence of the outcome significantly moderates differences in respondents’ reported retrospective happiness with material versus experiential purchases. For purchases that turned out positively, experiential purchases lead to more happiness than do material purchases, as the experience recommendation suggests.