| json_metadata | "{"app":"musing/1.1","appTags":["life","social","blog"],"appCategory":"life","appTitle":"Which type of spending or purchases bring more happiness- experiential purchases or material purchases? Does this perception also vary with the social class?","appBody":"<p>First of all, the perception of happiness out of a particular purchase type does not same with all social class and it does vary from person to person and also from one social class to another. It could also be a compulsion for the economically weaker section of the society.</p>\n<p>The individuals who are relatively higher in social class & who are affluent have generally higher purchase power and they may feel greater happiness from purchasing experiences, such as going to a concert or the movies, compared with purchasing material goods, such as a pair of shoes or accessories. On the other hand, lower class individuals may not have the same purchasing pattern and they may even find more happiness when they make material purchases rather than experiential purchases.</p>\n<p>Therefore purchasing is something lies with the purchasing power but when it comes to the type of purchasing then the happiness may not be universal for all social class and it may vary from one social class to the other. Some may have more pleasure in buying experiential purchases while others may get more pleasure in buying tangible objects.</p>\n<p>However, consumer decision and its pattern vary between higher-class and lower-class consumers. Thus it can be anticipated that the degree of happiness obtained from different types of purchases would also vary by social class.</p>\n<p>Individuals of higher social class have an abundance of resources, which means they can afford to focus more on internal growth and self-development. Because experiential purchases are more closely related to the self than material ones, so higher class individuals tend to derive more happiness from an experiential purchase.</p>\n<p>Similarly, people who have fewer resources, are likely to be more concerned with resource management and making wise purchases. For lower-class consumers, spending money on concert tickets or a weekend trip might not result in greater happiness than buying a new pair of shoes or a flatscreen TV, or a Refrigerator, etc. In fact, lower class consumers are happiest from purchasing things, which makes sense given that material goods have practical benefit, resale value, and are physically longer lasting. However, in some of the cases, the reason behind such a purchasing pattern could be a priority they have set it in their life. But it is equally true that the purchasing pattern does have a social resemblance to their class. That is not bad rather it constitutes a part of social engineering.</p>\n<p>The pattern of purchases and the measurement of social class can be made on the basis of education, income, the person's subjective judgments, etc. But the relationship and the pattern of consumerism and social class is not an overnight phenomenon and in order to establish a pattern, it may require to engineer the data over a period of time to assess a pattern.</p>\n<p>The bottom line is that, when it comes to increasing one's happiness through discretionary spending, there is no single right answer of what to buy(whether material purchases or experiential purchases). People's available resources will be the predominant factor and when it will be judged after surpassing the ability of an individual beyond the economic capability, then the pattern could unfold into other dimensions like social class, subjective attitude to buying, priorities, etc. These are important factors when deciding whether to purchase experiences or material goods to be happier.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pk3xaag8w","appParentAuthor":"divine-sound","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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