Numerous studies have suggested that experiential purchases result in greater and more long-term happiness than material purchases. But what about the overall well-being of the types of people who typically spend materially or experientially?
Gallup uses Cantril’s Self-Anchoring Scale to gauge the percentage of Americans that are thriving, struggling, or suffering at any given time. Their results from 2011 were recently released and show how thriving scores have changed over the past few years, and also how they compare across different demographic variables (e.g., household income, age, gender, ethnicity, region of the country).
We ran some preliminary analyses from a U.S. sample of 443 adults who had taken both the Experiential Buying Tendency Scale and the Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale and compared thriving scores for material, experiential, and balanced buyers, controlling for income.
As the results below demonstrate, experiential buyers were much more likely to be thriving, and much less likely to be struggling or suffering, than both balanced and material buyers.
| Total | Experiential Buyers | Balanced Buyers | Material Buyers | |
| Thriving | 58.2% | 67.0% | 58.6% | 52.9% |
| Struggling | 38.8% | 31.8% | 37.9% | 43.9% |
| Suffering | 2.9% | 1.1% | 3.5% | 3.2% |
| n | 443 | 88 | 198 | 157 |
We’ll continue to explore the mechanism by which purchasing style is linked to well-being, as well as other variables that may play a role in this relationship. You can help us with this research by creating an account and taking the Experiential Buying Tendency Scale and other spending and well-being related measures.
Pingback: How We Think About Events At Crowdtilt | Welcome to Crowdtilt team
Pingback: How We Think About Events At Crowdtilt | Welcome to the Crowdtilt BlogWelcome to the Crowdtilt Blog