8 tips to help you be a more thoughtful gift-giver (Part 2)
If you find some of your gift choices aren’t hitting the mark, these tips might help you get back on track.
In Part 1 of this very short series about how to be a more thoughtful gift-giver, I explored four interesting psychological insights into gift-giving and how you can use them to improve your gift selections for the people you care about.
If you’ve already read it, you’ll recall we explored the averaging effect, how multiple gifts can be a bad idea, how some gifts can be bad for anxious people, and how gift practicality is often underrated. (If you haven’t read it yet, you can find Part 1 here.)
Now, true to my word, here are the other four research gems I picked up while exploring the world of gift psychology.
Enjoy …
Tip #5: Don’t let “one-upmanship” drive your gift choices
Just how prevalent one-upmanship is in the gift-giving universe is hard to quantify, but suffice to say it’s a common enough occurrence for psychologists to want to study it.
And to quickly define “one-upmanship”, what we’re talking about is the rivalry between gift-givers where they try to outdo each other in terms of the value or ‘impressiveness’ of the gift or gifts they’ve chosen.
I’d speculate that this rivalry usually barely registers in our consciousness, but it almost certainly spills over into deliberate behaviour in some people.
A 2021 study[1] by two researchers, Associate Professors Galek and Olivola from Carnegie Melon University, uncovered some interesting insights that back this up.
They demonstrated that when a gift-giver is aware of what other gifts are being purchased, some will become competitive, increasing their spend in an effort to outdo their rivals.
If you find yourself making gift-buying decisions that are more about ‘outdoing your rivals’ than they are about the gift recipient, guess what, one-upmanship is a thing for you.
But here’s the kicker, Galek and Olivola also demonstrated that gift-givers are often far more concerned about the relative value of the gift they give than the recipient ever is.
What that means is if your objective is to score more brownie points with someone by giving them a more elaborate and expensive gift than your ‘rivals’ have, your strategy probably isn’t going to work. (Of course, if your main objective is to annoy the people you’re competing with, you’re almost certainly on the right track.)
But bringing this back to the perspective of thoughtful gift buying, the good news is your gift doesn’t have to be more expensive than everyone else’s to be impactful. A truly thoughtful present will beat an expensive, thoughtless gift every day of the week (not that it should be a competition anyway).
Tip #6: The ‘Wow Factor’ shouldn’t be your motivation
This one is a bit counterintuitive.
Very often we choose a gift for a family member or friends because we hope it will surprise and delight them.
Totally normal right?
But here’s the thing, what may actually be driving your choice then and there is how much enjoyment you expect to get from the recipient’s reaction rather than how much pleasure the gift will actually deliver to the person who receives it.
The researchers who identified this behaviour, Adelle Yang from the University of Singapore and Oleg Urminsky from the University of Chicago, speculated that the emotional responses we anticipate from the person we’re giving a gift to could play a big role in our gift choice decisions[2].
Yang and Urminsky gave a name to the behaviour. It’s what they called the ‘smile-seeking hypothesis’ where they surmised “… people […] gravitate towards the gifts that they anticipate will elicit the most enthusiastic emotional responses, rather than those that the recipients themselves would prefer or would derive the most satisfaction from.”
The message here is: If your main motivation for choosing a particular gift for someone is that you think it will generate a big display of emotion, you need to ask yourself: “Who is this gift really for? Me or them?”
Tip #7: Be careful not to over-personalise a gift
First of all, let’s define what I mean by a ‘personalised’ gift.
No, I’m not talking about having the gift recipient’s name engraved on a pen or giving someone monogramed handkerchiefs. I’m talking more nuance than that.
What I’m referring to is the kind of item or experience that the person would normally only choose for themselves because the qualities or functionality they prefer in that item or experience are very personal to them.
The main problem with highly personalised gifts is they are not as versatile as the recipient might need them to be, especially if they can’t be readily changed or adapted to suit the recipient’s peculiar wants or needs.
A wallet is a good example.
Should you really be making that kind of fashion (as well as practical) choice on someone else’s behalf — even if you know them well? A wallet can make a real statement about the user, and its’ preferred functionality can also be very personal.
Should you really be making choices about how many card slots there are, where and how personal identification is displayed (if at all) and how cash is contained, alongside things like colour, material and style — without consultation?
I’d say no, particularly if the person you’re buying for is old enough and has enough life experience to form their own opinions about such things.
If you know the person you’re buying for has a need for a new ‘personal’ item, rather than try and choose it for them, a better idea might be to give a gift voucher to an appropriate retailer or on-line vendor. Or if you don’t want to do that, ask the person what they want specifically, and get them exactly that.
Always err on the side of caution when it comes to personalised gifts, and don’t let your ego get in the way if you don’t know exactly what the person you’re buying for wants.
Like it or not, it’s not really your choice to make when it comes to very personal things for other people.
Tip #8: Giving and receiving at the same time can be a good thing
This curious bit of research that comes out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Toronto, Scarborough[3]. I say curious because it seems to run contrary to the notion of social projection bias.
To quickly explain, social projection bias is the assumption held, often by very self-confident people, that just because they value something, everyone around them will too. That is, they project their values onto other people.
This is not normally regarded as being particularly healthy.
Yet, in certain circumstances, it would seem that your own positive experience with an item can add to the perceived value of that thing.
A 2017 study, conducted by Professors Evan Polman and Sam Maglio, found that gift recipients were more favourably disposed towards a gift that the giver also got for themselves.
The professors termed the phenomenon “companionising”.
It appears that a gift recipient will feel closer to the gift giver when the giver likes the gift enough to want one for themselves as well. Presumably it’s a form of endorsement and an expression of confidence in the value of the gift?
The original research was inspired by the idea of friendship bracelets, but the researchers report that the companionising affect works with people who aren’t close friends or family too.
From my perspective, I’d use this strategy very carefully and sparingly.
Whether or not you value an item or experience should not be used as the sole reason for choosing that item or experience as a gift for another person. Doing so takes no account of the other person’s wants, needs and preferences.
If, however, you find yourself thinking; “That’s a perfect gift for so and so. In fact, I like it so much I’ll get one for myself while I’m at it.”, then you might be on to something.
Putting the other person first is always the best strategy when choosing a gift.
That might sound painfully obvious. But it’s not always that easy to do.
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[1] Source: Don’t let pressure of one-upmanship dictate your gift selection: Assoc. Prof. J. Galek and Assoc. Prof. C. Olivola, Carnegie Mellon University, 2021.
[2] Source: People pick gifts that will ‘wow’ rather than satisfy recipients; A. Yang and O. Urminsky, 2014
[3] Source: To pick a great gift, it’s better to give AND receive; Prof. E. Polman and Prof. S. Maglio, 2017
