What Car Salesmen Will Never Tell You
Description: If you optimize your life long enough, you forget to live it.
The cleanest evidence comes from Leaf Van Boven and Tom Gilovich, who asked people to recall a purchase over a hundred dollars, made either for an experience or for a material thing, and then asked which had made them happier. Experiences won. They won again when people were asked which purchase counted as money well spent.
The reason sits in the adaptation. A jacket becomes furniture in your closet within a month. A trip becomes a story you tell for twenty years, and it usually improves in the telling.
So when the choice is close, buy the one you will still be talking about.
Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85*(6), 1193–1202.
Follow @danielpink for behavioral science you can put to work the same day you read it.-
To find out more about Daniel Pink, his books, and view his resources, visit https://danpink.com Close description
The cleanest evidence comes from Leaf Van Boven and Tom Gilovich, who asked people to recall a purchase over a hundred dollars, made either for an experience or for a material thing, and then asked which had made them happier. Experiences won. They won again when people were asked which purchase counted as money well spent.
The reason sits in the adaptation. A jacket becomes furniture in your closet within a month. A trip becomes a story you tell for twenty years, and it usually improves in the telling.
So when the choice is close, buy the one you will still be talking about.
Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85*(6), 1193–1202.
Follow @danielpink for behavioral science you can put to work the same day you read it.-
To find out more about Daniel Pink, his books, and view his resources, visit https://danpink.com Close description