THURSDAY, May 23, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Materialism may be fueling the U.S. epidemic of loneliness and isolation, a new study says.
People who spend their money on experiences tend to have stronger feelings of social connection with others than those who buy belongings, a series of psychological experiments has revealed.
For example, people tend to feel more connection and affinity with people who have shared an experience (a concert or sporting event) than with those who have purchased the same type of material good, such as shoes.
“You feel a significantly stronger sense of connection when you find out you just saw the same band in concert than when you find out you have the same shoes as someone else,” said researcher Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University. University of Texas at Austin.
To test how spending patterns affect a person’s sense of belonging, Kumar and his colleagues conducted a series of seven experiments involving more than 1,400 people.
The results showed that experiences are more linked to a person’s identity than to material possessions.
The findings were published in the May 21 issue of the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making.
“All of our shopping habits are, to some extent, part of who we are, and can connect us to other people,” Kumar said in a university news release. “But that’s much more likely to be true for the experiences we buy than for the material items we buy.”
They found that experiences are also less linked to envy.
Two separate people will have a greater sense of connection over a shared experience, even if one of them was able to purchase a superior version of the experience, the results show.
For example, a person sitting in the nosebleed section will still feel a stronger connection with a person in a private box over the baseball game they both watched than if they realized they were wearing the same type of shoes, Kumar said. .
Shared events increase feelings of connection not only among friends who attend together, but among people in general, the results show.
Companies that market products for sale should consider highlighting the experiences a person might have with those products, Kumar said.
“That would likely improve consumers’ feelings of social connection and boost long-term satisfaction,” he said. “That can be important for things like customer retention and brand loyalty.”
More information
The United States Surgeon General offers more information about loneliness and isolation.
SOURCE: University of Texas at Austin, press release, May 21, 2024
