科学美国人60秒 人们认为经历会带来幸福，但还是会选择一些事情（在线收听）

You might assume that a new purse, painting or pair of shoes will bring happiness. Although you’d probably get a bigger kick out of attending a play or spending a week in Paris. But people still mostly opt for items over experiences—because the value of items is more easily quantifiable. That’s according to a study in The Journal of Positive Psychology. [Paulina Pchelin and Ryan T. Howell, The hidden cost of value-seeking: People do not accurately forecast the economic benefits of experiential purchases]

你可能一个新的钱包，一幅画，或一双鞋会给你带来幸福。虽然或许你会因为出去游玩或在巴黎度过一周而感觉更开心。但是相比于经历，人们大多数仍然会选择物品——因为物品的价值更容易量化。这是根据《积极心理学杂志》上的一项研究而来。

Researchers surveyed people before and after they made purchases. Beforehand, they rated life experiences as making them happier and as a better use of money than buying objects.

研究人员调查了在买东西之前和买东西之后的人们。在买东西之前，他们认为生活经历更能使他们快乐，相比于购买物品能更好的利用金钱。

But subjects still tended to choose to buy objects over experiences. Then, despite picking items, most said they still believed the experiences would have been a better choice.

但接受调查的人们仍然倾向于选择购买物品要优于经历。然后，尽管他们选择了物品，但是大多数人却仍然相信经历将是一个更好的选择。

The researchers ascribe this conflict to the tangible and quantifiable nature of a thing. You can point to a car and say how much its worth. But taking that car on a cross-country trip is an experience, and experiences can’t easily be assigned a value.

研究人员把这种矛盾归因为物品有形的及可量化的性质。你能指着一辆车，说它值多少钱。但是开着那辆车去跨国旅行是一种经历，而且这种经历不能轻易的被指定成一种价值。

Unless of course, you’re still paying off that week in Paris.

—Erika Beras

当然，除非你仍然喜欢为巴黎一周经历买单。——埃里克·贝拉斯