People return to their favorite things when this happens in their life

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

People turn back to tried and tested favorite things when they think a chapter in their life is coming to a close, suggests new research.

The study showed that when endings approach, people choose the comfort of the familiar over the novel - such as a favorite old film or recipe.

Researchers say their findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, offer new ways to think about what experiences make us happy.

They said the study contradicts the popular idea of the bucket list - whereby people tend to pursue things they’ve never done but have always wanted to do - as they approach the end of life.

The American team explained that when people believe that a door is closing - that they have a limited amount of time left to enjoy something, such as dining out or travel - they gravitate to the comfort of something familiar rather than the excitement of something new.

In eight experiments involving more than 5,500l participants, the researchers explored whether people tend to prefer new, exciting experiences, such as trying a new restaurant, or familiar ones, such as returning to an old favorite -- and whether those preferences shift with the amount of time people believe that they have left to enjoy similar experiences.

Previous research has found that, on average, people tend to opt for new and exciting experiences over familiar ones. For example, they would rather see a new film than rewatch something they’ve already watched, given equal access to both.

However, study authors Professor Ed O’Brien and PhD student Yuji Katsumata Winet suspected that “perceived endings” might affect those choices by nudging people to return to a meaningful old favorite.

In the first experiment, the team asked 500 online participants and 663 college and business school students to read hypothetical scenarios in which they were given the choice between a novel experience or a familiar, beloved one - such as reading a new book or rereading an old favorite, or visiting a new city rather than revisiting a city they loved.

Half the participants were simply asked to make the choice, while the other half were instructed to imagine that it was the last chance that they would have for a while to travel or read a novel.

"Overall, across all the situations, participants in the 'endings' groups were more likely to choose familiar activities compared with participants in the control groups," said O'Brien, of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

In the next group of experiments, the research team moved beyond hypothetical questions to explore people’s behavior in lab and real-life settings.

In one, participants were told they would be given a gift card to a restaurant and that it needed to be used in the next month.

Then, half the participants were told to reflect on how few opportunities they would have for going to restaurants in the next month and specific things that might prevent them from going to restaurants.

Finally, the participants were asked whether they would prefer a gift card to a restaurant they’d visited before or one that was new to them.

Overall, 67 percent of the participants in the “endings” condition preferred a gift certificate to a familiar restaurant, compared with just 48 percent of those in the control condition.

The research team then explored why perceived endings seemed to push participants toward familiar things.

They found evidence that it was not simply because the familiar experiences were a safe bet that participants knew they would enjoy, but also because they were more likely to find those familiar things personally meaningful.

“Our findings unveil nuance to what people really mean by ending on a high note," Winet said.

“Endings tend to prompt people to think about what’s personally meaningful to them. People like ending things on a meaningful note as it provides psychological closure, and in most cases old favorites tend to be more meaningful than exciting novelty.”

O'Brien said: “The research is especially interesting because, on the surface, it runs counter to the idea of the bucket list, whereby people tend to pursue novelty - things they’ve never done but have always wanted to do -- as they approach the end of life.

“Here we find that, at least in these more everyday ending contexts, people actually do the opposite. They want to end on a high note by ending on a familiar note.”

The researchers noted that the findings could help people better structure their time to maximize their enjoyment of experiences, such as by visiting an old favorite attraction on the last rather than the first day of a vacation.

They said retailers and marketers, too, could take advantage - a café slated to close for renovations might put more of its favorite dishes on the menu rather than try new items for sale.

And they suggested that such psychological framings could be useful for addressing larger societal problems.

Winet added: “Nudging people toward repeat consumption by emphasizing endings and last chances could subtly encourage sustainable consumption by curbing the waste that necessarily accumulates from perpetual novelty-seeking."