Elena Bocchi (Bayes Business School)

On The Hunt: Collecting Increases Search Enjoyment and Product Valuation

Collecting is a common form of consumption, and those who collect devote vast resources to growing and maintaining their collections. Although prior research has examined the antecedents of collecting among extreme collectors, few studies examined its potential consequences on the search and acquisition process of goods among everyday consumers. Across a series of preregistered studies, we demonstrate that collecting has positive implications on both the search and acquisition process. Specifically, consumers retrieve intrinsic enjoyment from the act of searching for a given item to add to a collection – a feeling that we call joy for the hunt. The positive utility retrieved from searching in turn, leads to an increased valuation of those goods. This effect emerges not only when people actively collect, but also when the same product is held constant and perceived as collectible. It also generalizes across several product types, and is not driven by the products’ cost, need of the item, or the fact that consumers are more involved with the item types.