I had lunch with Emma from IQPC yesterday and amongst other things we got onto what we were planning on buying our respective partners for Christmas. I won't name what we'd both got so as not to spoil things on the very small chance that either will read this, but suffice to say that both are experience related gifts. We were both of the opinion that folks reach a certain age where if we need a material item we've generally bought it already, whereas experiences are harder to come by.
So which makes us happier do you think? Receiving a product or an experience?
New research explored this and found that a good experience beats a good material gift. The research suggests a few reasons why this is so.
- A product tends to diminish over time, whereas our mental recollection of an experience tends to improve them
- People tend to revisit happy experiences often, so they provide value long after the actual event itself.
- Material goods are easy to compare with other such gifts, but experiences tend to be more unique and so stand alone in our memories.
- Because they're unique we also don't become familiar with them, and we all know familiarity breeds contempt.
- Experiences tend to require one or more others to join us, and social experiences tend to make us happier than solitary ones.
So if you want a happy partner this Christmas (or any other time), go for the experience gift rather than the material one.
That makes sense. Certainly the older you get the less you need material things. Unless they're shiny or chocolatey 🙂