Talking About What You Did and What You Have: The Differential Story Utility of Experiential and Material Purchases

Imagine you just returned from a week in the Caribbean or sampling the restaurants in New York City. How likely would you be to tell others about your trip? Would the telling enhance your experience? Now imagine you spent a similar sum of money on a home theater or some new living room furniture you’ve been eyeing. How likely would you be to tell others about these purchases, and would the telling increase how much enjoyment you get from them? The research presented in this paper investigates one explanation for the fact that experiential purchases bring us more happiness than material purchases (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003): consumers talk more about their experiences than their possessions and derive more value from doing so. Such conversations facilitate the re-living of the experience in question, they encourage embellishment, and they foster social connection—all of which serve to enhance enjoyment of the original event. Seven studies demonstrate that people are more inclined to talk about their experiences than their material purchases and they derive more happiness from doing so; that taking away the ability to talk about experiences (but not material goods) would diminish the enjoyment they bring; and that being given the opportunity to talk about experiences (but not material goods) increases the satisfaction they bring.