Psychologists have found that buying life experiences makes people happier than buying possessions, but who spends more of their spare cash on experiences? We now know that extroverts and people who are open to new experiences tend to spend more of their disposable income on experiences, such as concert tickets or a weekend away, rather than hitting the mall for material items.
In a recent study, we examined the responses of people who completed online questionnaires about their shopping habits, personality traits, values and life satisfaction. These habitual “experiential shoppers” reap long-term benefits from their spending: They reported greater happiness.