Wanting without enjoying: The social value of sharing experiences

Abstract

Social connection can be a rich source of happiness. Humans routinely go out of their way to seek out social connection and avoid social isolation. What are the proximal forces that motivate people to share experiences with others? Here we used a novel experience-sharing and decision-making paradigm to understand the value of shared experiences. In seven experiments across Studies 1 and 2, participants demonstrated a strong motivation to engage in shared experiences. At the same time, participants did not report a commensurate increase in hedonic value or emotional amplification, suggesting that the motivation to share experiences need not derive from their immediate hedonic value. In Study 3, participants reported their explicit beliefs about the reasons people engage in shared experiences: Participants reported being motivated by the desire to forge a social connection. Together, these findings suggest that the desire to share an experience may be distinct from the subjective experience of achieving that state. People may be so driven to connect with each other that social experiences remain valuable even in the most minimalistic contexts.

Effects of social and emotional context on neural activation and synchrony during movie viewing

“…Contrary to our hypothesis, however, participants did not report feeling more emotional during the joint condition compared to solo (F(1,51) = 0.005, p = 0.95). These null results do converge with recent work showing that shared video watching tasks do not meaningfully impact emotional ratings 55 .…”

“…Evidence suggests that positive emotions are linked to greater well-being 79 and that sharing positive experiences with others leads to greater resilience 80 , so there may be psychological benefits to the individual engaging in sharing behavior. Additionally, sharing experiences can lead to increased willingness to engage with a stranger and greater social bonding in both adults and children 3,55,[81][82] , so this may also serve as a way to form or strengthen social relationships among the pair.…”

What Are Meaningful Social Interactions in Today’s Media Landscape? A Cross-Cultural Survey

“…Scholars have studied various aspects of meaningful social interactions for decades (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Bhargave & Montgomery, 2013;Blumer, 1986;Hardin & Higgins, 1996;Jolly et al, 2019;Levine & Higgins, 2001;Searle & Willis, 1995). While an abundance of research Emotional impact Describes the interaction as leading to emotions such as empathy, sadness, authenticity, or love.…”

“…Humans are one of the only species that engage in interactions for purely social purposes (Gelfand, 2018) and often opt for social experiences over solo ones "even in the absence of a hedonic boost, and at a monetary loss" (Jolly et al, 2019, p. 15). However, not all social interactions are equal; it is the deeper and more meaningful ones that people yearn for from infancy to old age (Baumeister & Leary, 1995;Bhargave & Montgomery, 2013;Blumer, 1986;Hardin & Higgins, 1996;Jolly et al, 2019;Levine & Higgins, 2001;Searle & Willis, 1995).…”

Change in mental health, physical health, and social relationships during highly restrictive lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from Australia

“…Engaging in shared activities/experiences has been identified as one key aspect of relationship maintenance (Rossignac-Milon & Higgins, 2018), and human beings have an inherent motivation to seek out shared experiences with others (Jolly et al, 2019). For example, Girme et al (2014) found that couples engaging in more frequent shared activities reported greater perceived relationship quality both concurrently and longitudinally.…”