The Science of Gift Giving and Happiness

In October 2016, my brother Matt — a long-time season ticket holder for the Chicago Cubs — called me to get advice on a very unusual dilemma: what should he do with his four tickets for the upcoming World Series game? One option was to take his wife and two kids to the game — clearly a really special opportunity. Another option was to sell the tickets and make $10,000.

As someone who writes and talks regularly about the science of happiness, I gave him two choices. One good option was to take his family to the game and enjoy that shared experiences (and savor and remember those memories for a long time). Another good option was to sell the tickets and then take the proceeds and go on a great family trip — Disneyland, or the Grand Canyon, or Hawaii. And I also cautioned him to avoid what might be a tempting — but not wise — choice: selling the tickets and buying new living room furniture.

Why is spending money on experiences a much better route to happiness than spending money on material objects? Here’s what empirical research in psychology reveals.

The Pleasure of Anticipation

Have you ever taken a fabulous trip that you thought about and planned for weeks and months ahead? Thinking about where you were going to go, what you were going to see, and so on? If so, congratulations — that type of anticipation is a great way to milk more happiness out of a single event! This is the type of anticipation children experience leading up to Christmas morning — they savor that day in part because they’ve anticipated the joy of opening fabulous gifts for days and weeks ahead. (The Germans even have an expression for it — Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude, which means, “Anticipation is the greatest joy.”)

Scientific research consistently demonstrates that people who anticipate something experience greater enjoyment than those who do not. For example, researchers in one study asked college students to participate in a “chocolate rating” study. Half the students were asked to immediately eat Hershey’s Kisses or Hugs, and then to rate their enjoyment of this chocolate. The other students were also asked to eat and then rate the chocolate but only after waiting for thirty minutes. Students who had to wait thirty minutes reported liking the chocolate much more than those who were able to eat it immediately.

One reason why we get more happiness out of spending money on experiences is therefore that it is more enjoyable to anticipate experiences than a new material good. Think about the pleasure you might get from anticipating a long-awaited vacation — what will you see, what will you do, what will you eat. Now think about the pleasure you might get from anticipating the upcoming arrival of a material possession — a car, large-screen television, new computer. For most people, the anticipation of the arrival of the material object (“I can’t wait to have my new purse!”) evokes much less happiness than the anticipation of the trip (“I can’t wait to see Machu Picchu!”).

The findings from this research led me and my husband to give experiences as gifts to our children at Christmas each year. For my sons, these experiences always revolve around sports — tickets to see the Boston Celtics or the Boston Bruins. For my daughter one year, we gave tickets to Hamilton; another year it was tickets to the Dancing with the Stars Tour. (As it turns out, the Dancing with the Stars Tour is not the most appropriate choice for an eleven-year-old girl, but that’s a story for another time!)

So, when you are shopping for loved ones this holiday season, consider buying an experience — a day at a spa, tickets to a concert, or a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant.

The Power of Shared Experiences

Another explanation for the benefits of buying experiences is that people are more likely to share experiences with others, whereas they are more likely to acquire material possessions for solo use. After all, you are probably more likely to go on a trip or to the theater with a friend than alone, but are likely buying that new purse, watch, or laptop for your own use, not to share. And perhaps this tendency to share experiences with others accounts for their greater impact on happiness.

Researchers in one study directly tested this question by comparing the relative benefits on happiness of spending money on experiences versus possessions, as well as spending money for solitary versus social purposes. As predicted, social spending led to greater happiness than solitary spending. In other words, buying a new large-screen television the whole family can enjoy brings us more happiness than buying a new purse or watch we plan to use ourselves. This finding held true for buying both material possessions and experiences; people who spent money on socially shared experiences — going to a concert with a friend or taking a vacation with a spouse — reported higher levels of satisfaction than those who spent money on solo experiences — attending a sporting event on their own or taking a solo trip.

But the very best predictor of happiness was spending money on socially shared experiences — planning a trip with a romantic partner or taking the whole family to a Broadway play. In fact, socially shared experiences had a greater impact on happiness than spending money on solitary experiences or material possessions (solitary or shared). These results point to the profound benefits of spending money on experiences, especially if those experiences can be shared with people we care about, on happiness.

The Power of Reliving

Imagine you’ve taken a great trip — a relaxing week at a Caribbean resort, an exciting week touring historic sites in Rome, a hiking trip to a national park. Now imagine you’ve just spent a bunch of money on belongings — a fancy new car, a luxury watch, a fur coat. Which of these purchases would you be more likely to share with others? Most of us are much more much likely to talk about our experiences with other people than our purchases of material objects.

Moreover, talking about experiences increases our enjoyment of the original event. We love describing our trips to others in part because in the telling we are reliving the experience in our minds. It’s much less enjoyable to talk about similarly expensive material purchases with people. We may mention in passing that we’ve bought a new car, but we’re pretty unlikely to keep describing its purchase or our experience driving it to others.

As Amit Kumar, the author of these studies, notes, “Experiences live on in our memories and in the stories we tell, while our material goods ‘disappear’ as we inevitably get used to them. A once-cherished Walkman is now obsolete, but, as Humphrey Bogart once told Ingrid Bergman, ‘We’ll always have Paris.’”

The Cubs World Series Dilemma

So what choice did my brother ultimately make? He took his family to the game — and miraculously saw the only Cubs win in Wrigley Field. They anticipated going to the game, attended the game together as a family, and continue to relive this night as they share the story with others about this unique experience. And that’s the type of happiness that money truly can buy!