Science of giving gift?
“Choosing the wrong gift can be kind of risky for relationships
because it says you don’t have anything in common,” says Elizabeth Dunn, a
psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and
co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. Her research has
also showed that undesirable gifts can sometimes negatively impact the receiver’s perception of a relationship’s future potential.
Since you don’t want your holiday gift to cause more harm than
good, how can you be sure to choose a gift the receiver will love? Psychology
may have the answer.
Don’t fret about the price
Should you just splurge to show how much you care?
Research has actually shown that spending more does not always
guarantee a well-received gift. One study found that the more expensive a gift,
the more givers expected recipients to appreciate it. But while givers thought
spending more conveyed more thoughtfulness, receivers didn’t associate the
price with their level of appreciation.
“It seems pretty intuitive that if you spend more, you’re going
to get a better gift. It turns out that there’s no evidence that recipients are
sensitive to the cost of a gift when they figure out how much they’re going to
enjoy that gift,” says Jeff Galak, an associate professor of marketing at the
Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business in the US city of Pittsburgh.
Galak, who studies consumer behaviour and decision making,
acknowledges that you may have to hit a certain price threshold due to
tradition or expectations. But once you meet that cost, “it doesn’t matter if
you buy something more valuable”, he says. The gift itself is what matters
most.
Think longer term
Galak says the trick for giving a great gift is to think past
the fleeting moment of actually handing it over, a concept he and colleagues
Julian Givi and Elanor Williams found to be a common theme in studies on gift
giving, including a paper they authored.
“When givers give gifts, they’re trying to optimise on the
moment they give the gift and see the smile on the recipient’s face right in
that moment,” says Galak. “But what recipients care about is how much value
they’re going to derive from that over a longer time period.”
In other words, it might not be exciting to watch a friend or
family member open the gift of a movie-streaming subscription, so you might be
less likely to give one. But a recipient may actually love it, since it’s a
gift that can be enjoyed often over time.
Forget about uniqueness
Galak also suggests not getting hung up on giving the most
unique gift out there. Sometimes something that many people desire or many
others have can be exactly what someone wants.
One study showed that we tend to focus on a recipient’s unique traits and personality as we shop for them. But this hyper-specificity
leads us to ignore other aspects of their wants and needs, which may make us
buy them an inferior gift. We also tend to want to buy different gifts for multiple people, even if they might all be happier with the same thing – and
might never compare gifts at all.
In order to feel like a good gift giver, people erroneously feel
like they need to diversify the gifts, even at the cost of giving the best
present, according to Galak. You might also overlook buying something that you
own because you don’t want to undermine your own sense of individuality.
So those trainers of yours that your friend loves? Don’t avoid
gifting a matching pair just because you want to be unique.
Buy based on shared interests
To shop better, psychology professor Dunn suggests starting with
something you have in common with the recipient. She says that instead of using
your own preferences and adjusting them for how you and the recipient diverge,
focus on what you share and pick a gift from there.
“People are better at choosing something for themselves,” she
says, “so if you have something in common with somebody, get something that
shares the same affinity, because something you would like will more likely be
something they like.”
For an even stronger gift think about a common interest you share
and buy something that your recipient can experience – say, concert tickets or
a cooking class. Research has also shown that experiential gifts can bring you and the recipient closer, even if you don’t
experience the gift with your recipient.
Ask them what they want
If you have nothing in common, though, Dunn recommends just
asking the recipient what they want, or to work off a registry. In fact,
research shows that people are more appreciative of gifts they ask for than ones they don’t.
“People want to be creative and surprise the recipient,” says
Dunn, “but the better gift will be whatever it is they say they want.”
Galak agrees that the simplest way to make a person happy with a
gift is asking them what they want. It’s not an answer most people like, he
says, because good gifts are supposed to be a ‘surprise’ – even though science
has disproven this.
“Asking somebody what they want is seen as taboo. And that’s a
shame,” he says. “We would all be better off if we gave people what they want.”
Don’t overthink it
At the end of the day, don’t fret too much about giving a
terrible gift: truly bad gifts are rare.
Unless something is wildly inappropriate, the recipient will
feel some level of appreciation. Galak says that over the course of his
research he has asked thousands of participants about gifts they have received,
and he rarely hears someone talk about a bad gift. And even if you do give a
sub-par gift to someone you are close to, you may be saved by your
thoughtfulness. That’s because when someone gives a bad gift, it triggers the
receiver to think about why the giver chose it.
“When someone does something puzzling that needs to be explained
– like give a bad gift –that’s when you think about what’s on the other
person’s mind,” says Nicholas Epley, a professor at the University of Chicago
Booth School of Business who studies how we take other people’s perspectives
and make judgements. His research shows that if your recipient feels like you
at least spent a lot of time making your selection, they’ll appreciate the effort that went into choosing a less desirable
gift.
In other words, the old adage ‘it’s the thought that counts’
really might be true.
And even if you don’t get the gift right, someone will still
feel good in the situation: you. “When gift givers put a lot of thought into a
gift, they feel closer to the recipient,” says Epley. “Even if the recipient
isn’t so much affected by the thoughtfulness, the giver is.”
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