🎁 Are People Happier When They Buy Experiences?

New research reveals a two-way link between experiential purchases and well-being

We’re often told that if we want to buy happiness, we should spend our money on experiences rather than material goods. This experiential advantage is a well-established psychological finding: a $500 weekend getaway generally provides more lasting satisfaction than a $500 pair of designer shoes.

But what if the relationship works both ways? We know that experiences make us happier, but does happiness change how we view the things we buy? A new series of studies suggests that our internal state of well-being acts as a transformative lens, altering whether we see a product as an owned object or a worthwhile experience.

The distinction between material and experiential is often fuzzier than we think. When you buy a bicycle, for instance, you could view it as either a material possession stored in your garage or as a Sunday morning cycling experience with your family. It turns out that experiential purchases do improve well-being, but better well-being also makes us more likely to interpret our purchases as experiential.

🧪 What did the researchers do?

In a 2026 study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers tested how trait well-being (your general level of happiness) and state well-being (how you feel in the moment) impact the way you perceive your purchases.

In their first study, the researchers recruited 175 participants and measured their baseline subjective well-being. Months later, these same participants were asked to rate 37 different products—ranging from watches and rings to t-shirts—on a scale from “definitely material” to “definitely experiential”.

In a second experiment over the course of a week, 211 participants received five smartphone notifications a day asking them to report their current mood and any recent purchases. They then rated those real-world purchases on how experiential they felt. This allowed the researchers to see if someone who felt particularly happy at a given moment during the day would view a coffee or book they just bought as more experiential than they would if they were in a bad mood.

Finally, to get a more causal insight, the researchers ran experiments that manipulated people’s momentary levels of happiness by asking them to recall positive or negative life experiences from their past. After the manipulation, similar to the previous studies, participants rated a series of product purchases according to how experiential they were.

🔍 What did the research find?

The results across all studies supported a clear trend: when people have higher levels of well-being, they’re more likely to view purchases as experiential rather than materialistic.

In the first study, participants with higher baseline well-being rated products as more experiential. Even for items typically considered material (e.g. a watch), happy people were more likely to focus on the experiential aspects of owning and using it—perhaps the joy of understanding its complications and engineering or the chance to better understand their physical exercise routines in the case of a smartwatch.

The effect applied more broadly than general well-being though. The experience sampling study showed that it wasn’t just about your personality; your mood in the moment mattered too. When people felt higher levels of positive affect during a particular moment of the day, they were more likely to rate one of their own recent purchases as experiential.

This effect was driven primarily by positive rather than negative affect. A better mood boosted how much people viewed their purchases as experiential, but a bad mood didn’t necessarily lower it relative to neutral emotions.

Our relationship with our purchases and how they make us feel seems to create a self-reinforcing loop. Experiences improve our well-being, and that increased well-being then orients us to see more experiential, need-satisfying value in our future purchases. Previously, there was good evidence showing that experiential purchases make us happier than material purchases. Now, there’s an extra layer to the story: greater happiness also makes us more likely to view each individual purchase as experiential, further supporting our general well-being.

In other words, when it comes to how we spend our money, happiness isn’t just a result of what we buy; it’s also a tool that helps us extract more meaning from our existing spending habits.

⭐️ Takeaway tips

#1. Buy during a good mood

• Since positive affect increases your ability to see the experiential value in things, try to make significant purchase decisions when you are in a good mood. This internal state can make a meaningful difference: it helps you shift your focus from owning stuff to enjoying experiences, which may improve the quality of your decision-making and reduce the risk of making purchases you later regret.

#2. Reframe all purchases as experiences

• The research shows that the boundary between material vs experiential is fuzzy and psychologically constructed. Instead of some purchases being objectively materialistic while others are objectively experiential, there’s a lot of subjective interpretation that goes into determining the distinction. Since experiential purchases make us happier, it makes sense to look for the experiential side of everything we buy. When you buy new sneakers, focus on how they’ll improve the quality of your daily walks or runs rather than the brand attached to them. When buying a car, focus on how much it’ll improve your ability to get to exciting new places comfortably. For every purchase decision, ask yourself: “How does this support a psychological need, skill, or positive experience for me?”.

#3. Use the loop to your advantage

• Well-being and experiential perception support each other, so small wins really matter since they can set off a self-reinforcing loop of emotional positivity. Paying real attention to appreciating the small, low-cost experiences in your life (e.g. walks in the park, morning coffees) can boost your well-being, which may then help you find more joy and experience in the larger and higher-risk purchases you need to make later.

“The condition of all progress is experience. We go wrong a thousand times before we find the right path.”

~ Felix Adler

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