Pleasure for a Moment, Functionality for a Lifetime

The pursuit of happiness is one of the most fundamental of all human motives. This motive is often translated in the acquisition of hedonic products. Hedonic products offer fun, pleasure, cheerfulness and enjoyment (Chitturi, Raghunathan and Mahajan 2008). However, hedonic products fail to elevate happiness in the long run (Brickman and Campbell 1971; Frederick and Loewenstein 1999). The hedonic treadmill theory (Brickman and Campbell, 1971) argues that hedonic products do not offer a sustainable elevation of happiness, despite consumers’ intentions. After purchase, consumers’ happiness falls back to the baseline level. The hedonic treadmill theory sketches a fatalistic image: consumers pursue happiness through hedonic consumption, but fail to do so in the long run. Our research shows that hedonic products are bought for purposes of immediate gratification. Consumers do not want to elevate their long term happiness and they anticipate the hedonic fallback. Additionally, we want to demonstrate how utility affects length of ownership of hedonic versus functional products. If hedonic products are bought to meet short term goals, the utility derived from it should be in the near future. The deceleration rate of benefits should be steeper and this should determine the duration of ownership. Overall, we argue that consumers buy hedonic products for purposes of immediate gratification which results in a shorter period of ownership. However, time-perspectives may shift. Hedonic products demand more resources, which bolsters guiltiness (Khan, Dhar, and Wertenbroch 2005). Guilt is correlated with risk aversion (Mancini and Gangemi 2004) and risk aversion supports the acquisition of insurances, or extended service contracts (ESC). ESC’s extend a product’s lifetime. So, paradoxically despite a shorter period of ownership guiltiness fosters the acquisition of an ESC which extends the lifetime of a product.