Exploring the relationship between experiential consumption and SWB:

This study extends on the research by Matz et al. (2016) who examined the Big Five personality traits (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and neuroticism) as a possible personality moderator on the relationship between consumption and life satisfaction. In their study, they found that individuals who consume goods that suit their personality tend to report higher life satisfaction. The goal of this study is to examine whether a similar relationship is observed with regards to experiential consumption, which is money spent with the goal of obtaining a life experience. Experiential consumption is measured by the amount of experiential expenditure and the frequency of the following seven experiential activities: cultural activities, holiday activities, sport activities, photography activities, going out, dancing activities and music activities. By studying data for more than 4,800 individuals, this study found that experiential consumption is positively related with subjective well-being (SWB) of individuals, which is measured in this study by happiness and life satisfaction. Furthermore, the Big Five personality traits moderated the relationship between the number of holidays and SWB. However, for the other experiential activities there were almost no significant moderations found. The results suggest that going on holidays provides different levels of happiness and life satisfaction for individuals with certain personality traits.