In the paper "Happiness for Sale: Do Experiential Purchases Make Consumers
Happier than Material Purchases?" (Journal of Consumer Research [2009]:
\(188-197\) ), the authors distinguish between spending money on experiences
(such as travel) and spending money on material possessions (such as a car).
In an experiment to determine if the type of purchase affects how happy people
are after the purchase has been made, 185 college students were randomly
assigned to one of two groups. The students in the "experiential" group were
asked to recall a time when they spent about \(\$ 300\) on an experience. They
rated this purchase on three different happiness scales that were then
combined into an overall measure of happiness. The students assigned to the
"material" group recalled a time that they spent about \(\$ 300\) on an object
and rated this purchase in the same manner. The mean happiness score was 5.75
for the experiential group and 5.27 for the material group. Standard
deviations and sample sizes were not given in the paper, but for purposes of
this exercise, suppose that they were as follows:
\begin{tabular}{|ll|}
\hline Experiential & Material \\
\hline\(n_{1}=92\) & \(n_{2}=93\) \\
\(s_{1}=1.2\) & \(s_{2}=1.5\) \\
\hline
\end{tabular} Using the following Minitab output, carry out a hypothesis test
to determine if these data support the authors' conclusion that, on average,
"experiential purchases induced more reported happiness." Use \(\alpha=0.05\)
Two-Sample T-Test and Cl
Sample \(\begin{array}{rrrrr}\text { ple } & \text { N } & \text { Mean } &
\text { StDev } & \text { SE Mean } \\ 1 & 92 & 5.75 & 1.20 & 0.13 \\ 2 & 93
& 5.27 & 1.50 & 0.16\end{array}\) Difference
\(=\operatorname{mu}(1)-\operatorname{mu}(2)\)
Estimate for difference: 0.480000
\(95 \%\) lower bound for difference: 0.149917 T-Test of difference
\(=0(\mathrm{vs}>): \mathrm{T}\) -Value \(=2.40 \mathrm{P}\) -Value \(=\)
\(0.009 \mathrm{DF}=175\)