Payment and Pleasure: Monetary and Social Ties in Shared Consumption Experiences

ABSTRACT Despite rising living costs, consumers are increasingly investing in shared consumption experiences in the pursuit of happiness. However, in financially constrained contexts, payment distribution—that is, how the cost of an experience is covered among consumers—has become a more salient and psychologically meaningful component of the experience. This paper investigates how the payment distribution shapes anticipated happiness in shared consumption between two consumers. Across three experimental studies (total N = 2640), we find that consumers anticipate greater happiness from an experience when paying the full amount (vs. 50:50) when the experience is shared with a strong (vs. weak) social tie. This effect is explained by the expectation of reciprocity, which becomes more salient in interactions with weak ties, and in turn reduces anticipated happiness (Studies 2 and 3). These findings reveal that who pays has important affective consequences when consuming experiences together with a strong social tie, offering new insight into the intersection of financial decision‐making, social ties, and consumer wellbeing.