Celebrate or Commemorate? A Material Purchase Advantage When Honoring Special Life Events

Joseph K. Goodman, Selin A. Malkoc and Brittney L. Stephenson

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2016, vol. 1, issue 4, 497 - 508

Abstract: Special life events (e.g., graduations, promotions) are rare and meaningful. Consumers often honor these events with a purchase—either a celebratory experience or a commemorative material item. The authors propose that marking special life events with a material purchase provides a stronger connection to the past special event, allowing consumers to be transported back to their positive emotions experienced at the time of the event. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate this material advantage, while studies 3A–3C show that consumers’ predictions run counter to this finding, leading them to choose celebrations over commemorations. Studies 4 and 5 explore this misprediction and demonstrate that when consumers were encouraged to think about permanence, they more accurately forecasted a material advantage and were more likely to choose material purchases over experiences. The results suggest a potential exception to the widely accepted experiential advantage, while providing important implications for how purchases contribute to meaningfulness in life.

Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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