What makes me grow?

Abstract

This work presents that experiential purchases retain more meaningfulness than material purchases. That is, experiences give consumers greater meaning-based subjective well-being than do possessions as well. Further, three experiments demonstrate that consumers’ sense of self-expansion encourages perception of meaningfulness responsible for subjective well-being. Indeed, this means that experiential purchases are more proper to satisfy the fundamental desire of human nature than are material purchases, ego development. Together, these findings increase the understanding of purchase type (i.e. material and experiential purchases) and contribute to integrate growing literature on the relationship between purchase type and subjective well-being.