ITHACA, N.Y., March 4 (UPI) -- Spending money on material things may feel good at first but actually makes people less happy in the end, U.S. researchers said.
However, Thomas Gilovich a professor of psychology at Cornell University, and Travis J. Carter, a doctoral candidate at Cornell, found satisfaction with "experiential purchases" -- from massages to family vacations -- starts high and increases over time.
When it comes to material things, Gilovich and Carter found shoppers often second-guess their original buying decisions, comparing what they bought to other people's purchases -- or to better deals they missed.
However, buying experiences provides greater satisfaction as time goes on, in part because of selective memory and because a consumer's experience is highly subjective, making it much harder to make negative comparisons, the researchers said.
Consumers find it easier to decide on experiences, spending money on the first option that meets a set of expectations rather than painstakingly comparing all options, the study said.
The findings are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
