How the Intenton to Share Can Undermine Enjoyment
Barasch, Zauberman & Diehl
Sharing Experiences
Sharing experiences can happen in two ways:
People partcipate in experiences jointly with others. Experiencing an event with another
person can increase enjoyment of the experience by facilitatng social belonging and
connectonn
People can tell others who were not present about their experiences. Telling others about an
experience afer it ended can boost people’s positve afect and sense of meaning, their
satsfacton with the experience and their feelings of closeness and trust with their audience.
While there are many ways to share experiences with others, this study focusses on photo taking:
Sharing photographs requires an acton while the experience unfolds. Thus, the act of photo
taking should make whatever goal is driving that act partcularly salient during the
experiencen
Photos provide others with specifc, concrete details of the experience that may be both
difficult to communicate verbally and less subject to reinterpretaton or easy alteraton.
There are two photo-taking goals:
Sharing with othersn
Preserving memories for the self.
Current Research
Self-presentatonal concern: individuals’ tendency to care about how they are perceived by others
and the closeness of their intended audience.
Social interactons involve the prospect of being evaluated or judged by others in ways that can
influence future outcomes. As a result, social situatons ofen increase people’s concerns with self-
presentaton, or their desire to control the way they appear to real or imagined audiences. We
predict that taking photos with the goal of sharing them with others may lead people to antcipate
how this audience will perceive them.
We propose two potental paths that might influence current enjoyment:
Self-presentatonal concern is a negatve state that might directly decrease enjoyment of an
experiencen
Self-presentatonal concern might also reduce enjoyment indirectly, by decreasing
engagement or involvement with an experience. Self-presentatonal concern may decrease
pleasurable immersion in the experience itself, thus reducing enjoyment.
Hypothesis 1: relatve to taking photos for the self, taking photos with the intenton to share with
others will reduce enjoyment of an experience.
Hypothesis 2: relatve to taking photos for the self, taking photos with the intenton to share with
others will increase self-presentatonal concern.
Hypothesis 3: self-presentatonal concern will reduce enjoyment both directly and indirectly through
reduced engagement in the experience.
Barasch, Zauberman & Diehl
Sharing Experiences
Sharing experiences can happen in two ways:
People partcipate in experiences jointly with others. Experiencing an event with another
person can increase enjoyment of the experience by facilitatng social belonging and
connectonn
People can tell others who were not present about their experiences. Telling others about an
experience afer it ended can boost people’s positve afect and sense of meaning, their
satsfacton with the experience and their feelings of closeness and trust with their audience.
While there are many ways to share experiences with others, this study focusses on photo taking:
Sharing photographs requires an acton while the experience unfolds. Thus, the act of photo
taking should make whatever goal is driving that act partcularly salient during the
experiencen
Photos provide others with specifc, concrete details of the experience that may be both
difficult to communicate verbally and less subject to reinterpretaton or easy alteraton.
There are two photo-taking goals:
Sharing with othersn
Preserving memories for the self.
Current Research
Self-presentatonal concern: individuals’ tendency to care about how they are perceived by others
and the closeness of their intended audience.
Social interactons involve the prospect of being evaluated or judged by others in ways that can
influence future outcomes. As a result, social situatons ofen increase people’s concerns with self-
presentaton, or their desire to control the way they appear to real or imagined audiences. We
predict that taking photos with the goal of sharing them with others may lead people to antcipate
how this audience will perceive them.
We propose two potental paths that might influence current enjoyment:
Self-presentatonal concern is a negatve state that might directly decrease enjoyment of an
experiencen
Self-presentatonal concern might also reduce enjoyment indirectly, by decreasing
engagement or involvement with an experience. Self-presentatonal concern may decrease
pleasurable immersion in the experience itself, thus reducing enjoyment.
Hypothesis 1: relatve to taking photos for the self, taking photos with the intenton to share with
others will reduce enjoyment of an experience.
Hypothesis 2: relatve to taking photos for the self, taking photos with the intenton to share with
others will increase self-presentatonal concern.
Hypothesis 3: self-presentatonal concern will reduce enjoyment both directly and indirectly through
reduced engagement in the experience.
