Consumer - Consumption and Happiness

Question 1

Materialism is the _______ a consumer attaches to worldly ________. It is associated with _____ levels of compulsive buying, _______ levels of psychological adjustment and social functioning and ______ levels of unhappiness.

Answer 1

importance
possessions

higher
lower
higher

Question 2

Purchases can be divided into (1) _______ purchases, or those made with the intention of acquiring a life _______ (travelling, going to a concert) and (2) ________ purchases, or those made with the intention of acquiring a ______ good.

Answer 2

experiential
experience
material
material

Question 3

Boven and Gilovich (2003) conducted two studies related to purchase type and happiness. One was with _____ students and then other with a ______ sample. The former asked students to think about their most _____ purchase over $100, classify it as ________ or material, and then report which had made them happier. They found the _____ purchases made them happier than _______ ones

The community sample was asked to think of _____ a material and experiential purchase and report which had made them happier (over their lives). The results found that _____% said the experiential purchase made them happier, while ____% said the material one did. This finding held across different _______ groups.

This is known as the “________ advantage”. The authors recommended that consumers and governments invest more in ________.

Answer 3

uni
community
purchase
recent
experiential
experiential
material

both
57
34
demographic

experiential
experiences

Question 4

Name some possible mechanisms for why it appears experiences make us happier than material purchases.

Answer 4

Experiential purchases:

1. promote social connections (talking, storytelling, attending events with friends)
2. are incorporated into the self-concept (positive wellbeing) - participants told to think of BOTH experiential and material purchases and write a story with one of them - experiential purchases mentioned more)
3. less likely to be evaluated using social comparisons (very difficult to compare experiences)
4. less likely to be appraised in monetary terms (cars are thought of in terms of exchange…holidays not so much)

Question 5

Social class and the experiential advantage

Questions regarding the moderating role of social class on the experiential advantage comes from research which states that

1. higher social class - greater focus on….AND greater happiness from…
2. lower social class - greater concern about…AND…
3. the Boven and Gilovich (2003) study with the community sample showed that…

Answer 5

…internal states…experiential purchases

…wise use of resources…greater happiness from material purchases

…experiential advantage was weaker among low SES groups

Question 6

Social class and the experiential advantage

Describe the Lee et al., (in press) study about the role of social class
–> showed that the experiential advantage emerges only among individuals with a higher social class

Answer 6

Again, asked people about a recent purchase and which one made them happier - responses were reported on a 7-point scale

Also asked them about social class (where they ranked on a ladder 1-10 - MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status)

Within-subjects design

• Found that the lower income groups had a significant material advantage and the higher income groups had a significant experiential advantage
• However, found that among the middle-class there was no relationship between happiness and type of purchase.

Question 7

Social class and the experiential advantage

Describe the Lee et al., (in press) study about the role of resource availability
--> social class moderates experiential advantage effect - manipulated the critical mind-sets of people in these classes

Answer 7

• manipulated resource availability - primed with resource abundance or resource deprivation. Subjects had to imagine their monthly income had increased or decreased by 50%.
  Participants wrote for 3 min about how they would budget with their new monthly income. And had to place themselves on the ladder 1-10 - MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status
• then had to self-report happiness of a recent material vs experiential purchase
• found that resource availability moderated the experiential advantage - those in the abundance condition had a significant experiential advantage, and those with deprivation showed no experiential advantage (indicative of material advantage, but not significantly different from zero).

Question 8

Future directions

Material purchases and experimental purchases could be considered a ______ ________ (maybe you can have an experience with a guitar or a book or a phone). There are also things called ________ products, which are material possessions that give the same ______ effects as experiences
–> material possessions that afford life experiences provide similar levels of happiness as experiential purchases

Answer 8

false dichotomy
experiential
positive

Question 9

Future directions

Studies in this area have failed to measure ______ types of happiness. Such as _____ (hedonia) from _______ (eudaimonia). Perhaps you have _______ happiness when you make a purchase but not the ______ which occurs for a long time after a purchase. But maybe if whenever you wear that coat you bought you have _______ happiness.

Answer 9

different
pleasure
meaning
momentary
afterglow
momentary

Question 10

Future directions

It is also an idea that research in this area examines the effects of reduced ______ or __________, as many people live a life of thrift and are very happy.

Answer 10

reduced
underconsumption

–> the link between consumption and happiness can be better understood by - considering different types of happiness and examining the effects of reduced consumption and under consumption.