One part of wedding planning that I’ve been avoiding is creating a gift registry. It may seem confusing, like “Mikayla, you just list a bunch of things you want,” but I can’t make a decision on whether or not I even want to ask for things at all. I have heard several times before that spending money on experiences is a far better choice than buying material things. So I’ve looked into “experience” registries like Honeyfund, where you can create a registry in which the gifts are donations allocated to specific experiences. These could be things like dinner for two, a couples massage, or airfare for your honeymoon. This was an attractive option for us because my fiancé and I are financially stable and already have the things we need since we moved into our house over a year ago now. We’re also the kind of people who are generally content with what we have and don’t have much desire to upgrade to brand new matching sets of this or that.
However, it makes some people feel good to give a physical gift to a newlywed couple, specifically things that are for the home because it’s symbolizing the start of their new life in marriage. I thought that maybe we could still have a small registry with home goods, and to make sure it isn’t just junk, we could simply choose the things that would be nice to upgrade. Maybe we could get rid of my sister’s mismatched plastic kitchen utensils that were hand-me-downs from her college days and get some nice “adultier” ones. While I genuinely thought this would be nice, I kept feeling like we really don’t need it and I don’t even think it would make us any happier to serve our soup with a ladle that’s part of a matching set. Plus, this is something we could easily afford if we ever came across a good sale. My mind went back and forth like this for some time, which is why I kept procrastinating on even bothering to start with the registry at all. But recently I learned some interesting science that helped me make a decision.
I recently completed a course from Yale called the Science of Well-Being with Dr. Laurie Santos on Coursera. This is where I first came across two terms: miswanting and hedonic adaptation. Miswanting is “the act of being mistaken about what and how much you will like something in the future” (Tim Wilson and Dan Gilbert). Basically, we tend to want the things that don’t make us as happy as we think they will and we’re not wanting the things that actually will make us happy. The examples Dr. Santos provides are things like a good job, lots of money, “awesome stuff,” true love, a perfect body, and perfect grades. Hedonic adaptation is “the process of becoming accustomed to a positive or negative stimulus such that the emotional effects of that stimulus are attenuated over time.” Simply put, we quickly get used to the things that make us happy. We see this with marriage and the “honeymoon phase” (something for my fiancé and I to look forward to). We also see it with money, jobs, getting into a great school, and so on. We may get a big raise, but then it just becomes our salary. We may get promoted to a new position in our company, but then it just becomes our job. We get accepted to our dream university, then we get up early for 8 am lecture and it isn’t so marvelous anymore. These things don’t make us as happy as we think, in some part because it sticks around and it stays the same.
“Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But in fact that’s the worst thing about the new car… It will stay around to disappoint you.”
– Dan Gilbert
Dr. Santos says the way to overcome hedonic adaptation is by choosing experiences over stuff. These experiences could include a vacation, a trip to the art gallery, a concert, or even just going out to eat. The difference is you don’t have time to get used to it like you do with material things that stick around forever. Essentially, you don’t want things that last forever, you want things that go away. Not only are we happier with experiential purchases, but we also feel more excited in anticipation of experiential purchases than material ones (Kumar et al., 2014). Additionally, it is almost 2 and a half times more pleasant to think about experiential purchases than material ones because we tend to feel impatient thinking about material purchases, whereas we feel excited about upcoming experiences.
There are several other benefits in this regard as well. Experiences are more of a conversational topic than material purchases are, so talking about them with others brings you more happiness because others resonate with you. Van Boven et al. (2010) found that speaking about experiential purchases gives off better impressions of you to others than talking about material purchases. Some adjectives used to describe those who spoke about their material purchases included self-centered, insecure, and judgmental, whereas those who spoke about their experiences were described as humorous, open-minded, intelligent, and outgoing. Experiences are also less susceptible to social comparison. Howell & Hill (2009) found that people felt less likely to socially compare their experiences with others and less envious of others than they felt with material things. They also found an even larger effect in how the experiential purchase made others happier, sometimes because they include other people in a way that stuff often doesn’t.
While listening to these lectures, I thought, could this be why we shop so much? It’s not so much about the things themselves that make us happy, but the receiving of new things; coming home to find new Amazon boxes piled up at our door. We can’t wait to unwrap them and use whatever it was we purchased or decorate with it. Then after a short while, we end up back online scrolling through more unnecessary junk on Amazon trying to trick our minds into creating justifications for more purchases. Perhaps one could argue that the “receiving” of a material thing is what actually makes us happy because it is an experience.
We can’t live without “things” though and simply knowing that experiences will make us happi-er won’t stop us from seeking happiness from buying material things. But maybe there is a way in which we can be more mindful in our shopping habits. When my fiancé and I bought our first home, we immediately loved the neighborhood. All the neighbors were incredibly friendly. It’s like a little oasis of happiness. I was lucky enough to find a neighborhood group called Buy Nothing. The rules in this group are pretty simple: you can gift items you own and want to get rid of, you can wish for items you are looking for, you can express gratitude to those from whom you have received gifts, and there is absolutely no exchange of money allowed. This group was so amazing. They helped me furnish my new home and brought me joy with artwork I probably would have never gone out of the way to find myself. I got all the excitement of shopping without spending a dime. And as a bonus, I got to feel good about giving away items I didn’t need or things I realized I didn’t even use. This was beneficial because it helped me to minimize and replace them with things that either had a purpose or brought me joy. It was also great because I got to connect with my new neighbors and giving gifts is such a powerful way to increase your happiness. Being kind to others and giving to others has scientifically been shown to increase our happiness!
I know I am lucky with my neighborhood. Sadly, I have some friends that sought out their own Buy Nothing groups in their neighborhoods after hearing my positive experiences, but found that their neighbors weren’t quite so generous. But whether or not this specific group is a good option in your area, try to connect with your neighbors either directly or through Facebook Groups or Nextdoor, normalize second-hand gifts, give things away instead of tossing them away, maybe start a little library or little pantry too. Just be creative and thoughtful and you’ll soon see all the positivity that comes into your life.
Overall, this lecture in the Science of Well-Being course explained the reasons why experiences make us happier. After broadening my understanding, I revisited my wedding registry dilemma. I decided that there is no sense in asking for things that won’t make us happy and likely won’t even be any more useful than the things we already have. But allowing our wedding guests to contribute to our honeymoon, wedding costs, and home projects certainly will make us very happy. It will be fun to share all the memories with everyone and, as I now know, talking about our experiences with others, especially when they include others (like the contributors who made it possible), will make others happy too. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.
