Question Preface: Buying Your Way to Happiness? Often when research finds its way into sources with a general public readership (e.g., magazines, newspapers, websites) the research becomes oversimplified. Read this brief article from the Atlantic "Buy Experiences, Not Things" linked here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/buy-experiences/381132/Links to an external site..

Though the article actually does a fairly good job summarizing several research studies, the take-home message "buy experiences, not things" is a bit too absolute for the way science works. Is it oversimplified? Is that statement always true? Can existing research support that claim?

Although the research generally supports that experiences are better than material items, one needs more research to fully understand the extent of this advantage.

Primary Post: Consider times when this finding (discussed in the preface) would be truer and times, situations, contexts, or conditions when material things might actually be better. In essence, we are adding an additional variable that may interact with the nature (experience vs. material) of the purchase. [Some possibilities include How much money the purchaser has; the durability of the material good if the material good is for the self or for someone else; and whether the person buying things just really likes material goods.] Design a Factorial study to test your idea. Be sure to define all key concepts and explain the reasoning and justifications for each aspect of the design and fully operationalize all variables.