The BigFive _ spending and happiness

Would you rather ?

Would you rather buy a book and spend an hour in a bookstore reading it or get a beer and a snack and spend an hour in a bar ?

Money buys happiness when spending fits our personality

by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

Backgroud _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

-   Beyond having enough money to meet basic needs, more $ doesn’t seem to make people happier.

-   Spending $ on other people and experiences makes people happier than spending it on themselves or material goods.

Theory : Psychological Fit _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

: people are happier in situations that match their personalities

Hypothesis _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

“...spending provides the greatest increase in happiness and well - being when it is on goods and services that match consumers’ personalities.”

Study 1 : method _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

-   Correlational

-   625 Customers from a UK bank

-   self-reported big five personality

-   self-reported life satisfaction

-   access to their checking account records for the past 6 months

Study 1 : results _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

: People whose purchases matched their personalities more closely reported higher levels of life satisfaction.

Study 2 : method _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

-   Experiment

-   Created an introverted group ( n = 43 ) and an extraverted group ( n = 36 )

-   randomly assigned to receive a $10 voucher to a bookstore ( introverted purchase ) or a bar ( extraverted purchase )

-   self-reported happiness at start of study, right after getting voucher, right after spending it, 30 minutes later

Study 2 : results _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

1. Receiving the bookstore voucher, purchasing the book, and reading it in the bookstore made introverts happier.

2. Receiving the bar voucher, purchasing something at a bar, and consuming it made introverts less happy.

3. Both experiences made extraverts a little bit happier.

Conclusions _ by Matz, Gladstone, & Stillwell

-   It might be a good idea to spend on things that fit your personality ( especially for introverts ).

-   Different people’s happiness may benefit from spending $ on different things.

-   Companies can help people be happier by suggesting products based on personality.

-   There should be more experiments using different experiences to see if the results replicate.

: 

-   Critique ( Boyce, Daly, Hounkpatin. & Wood, 2016 )

-   $ is only very weakly associated with happiness

-   Focusing on materialism may make people less happy

Your own analysis ?

: Consider – internal and external validity, use for generating $, building theory