The science behind giving good gifts
The science behind giving good
gifts
Research shows that giving a bad gift can hurt your
relationships. So how can you be sure you pick something your recipient will
love?
It’s
the season to examine your holiday gift list. You’ll have to figure out who
gets a present – but also how much you’re actually going to spend and, most
importantly, what to get.
In
the UK, the average household spends around £500 on gifts
during the traditional holiday season, equalling Americans who spend about $650.
And although giving gifts can make you happy, communicate your feelings toward the receiver
and even strengthen relationships, a less-than-stellar gift
can have the opposite effect.
“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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