Merry Christmas!! She opens her gift, all excited and then is puzzled "You got me earrings? But I don't even have pierced ears?!" Him, looking all smug 'Well, they were expensive, so I thought you would appreciate them more." She then hides her thoughtful card and tells him that his gift is on its way. And this will be the first of many confusing gift giving moments.

Oh, Christmastime - that wonderful last time of the year when you have to rake your mind to come up with the most thoughtful gift for that special someone who gives you a gift certificate to a restaurant you don't even like (but they do) in return.  Between birthdays, valentine's day, special occasions and Christmas, it seems like gifts are given all year round, which isn't a bad thing mind you, but maybe people view it more material than emotional.  Maybe, just maybe, some people have listened to Material Girl by Madonna or Santa Baby by Marilyn Monroe one too many times.  It is as Eric Fromm put it - "we live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them".


First off, what is a "gift"? According to J. Clarke (2007), a gift is "a ritual offering that is a sign of involvement in and connectedness to another" (The Four 'S's' of Experience Gift Giving Behavior, Hospitality Management, 26, 98-116).  In another article, a gift is defined as "a good or service voluntarily provided to another person or group through some sort of ritual presentation" (Nguyen, H.P. & Munch, J.M. (2011).  Romantic gift giving as chore or pleasure:  The effects of attachment orientations on gift giving perceptions.  Journal of Business Research, 64, 113-118.) And then there is Webster's definition being "anything given; anything voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation; a present; an offering".  There are some re-occurring themes between the three definitions - offerings, rituals, voluntary and between people.  However, the differences are the key - involvement, connectedness and without compensation.


When it comes to birthdays or special occasions (like graduation, first communion, etc), people give gifts without compensation - they are giving gifts because it is the 'ritual' thing to do, so we are not going to focus on that as we want to focus more on the offerings that are between people.  Like, for example, when the gifts are between romantic people, for Christmas, for anniversaries, events like that.  Usually there is some form of compensation that is at the base of the reason of giving the gift in the first place.  Gifts can be used as a way to jump start the relationship ('for our one month, I got you a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes'), initiate and reciprocate gift giving ('since I got you shoes, what did you get me?') and can help the givers reinforce highly valued unstable relationships ('I am so sorry I lied to you about smoking, here are some donuts') (Nguyen & Munch, 2011).  Regardless of the reason, the giver is usually looking for something in return.  However, there can be other reasons for providing gifts, other than societal practices: the need to recognize and maintain a status hierarchy, the need to establish or maintain peaceful relations or simply the expectation of reciprocal giving (Nguyen & Munch, 2011). 


So, judging from the above, do people give gifts because they feel it is an obligation? Due to their personality? Or a combination of both?  Clarke (2007) found that there is an obligation in giving gifts in that there is a sense of indebtedness to the recipient as well as the art of gift giving drives the gift exchange system (I give you something, you give me something and vice versa until someone tells us to stop).  Furthermore, the obligation may arise because the giver has a knowledge of the personality of the recipient and the nature of the relationship (Clarke, 2007), so that they may feel that they have to give their girlfriend flowers every week, or buy her shoes whenever she has a bad day.    And then the type of personality has an important role in giving gifts.  Secure people (think Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh) enjoy giving gifts just for the pleasure of giving.  Both of us are secure type people, and it shows as we both get our managers/lawyers/people above us gifts without expecting or needing something in return - we do it because we enjoy getting them gifts.  On the other hand, anxious people (think Piglet) will find that gift giving is an obligation and may perhaps have a panic attack just thinking of trying to find the 'right' gift for that special person.  Finally, avoidant people (think Eeyore) will try to avoid giving gifts period and if they do, it is such an obligation for them to do it  (Nguyen & Munch, 2011). Finally, there is always the debacle of giving a gift because you want to make the recipient happy (altruistic) or give a gift to feel good about oneself (agnostic) (Beatty, S.E., Kahle, L.R. & Homer, P. (1991). Personal values and gift-giving behaviors:  A study across cultures, Journal of Business Research, 22, 149-157).


So once a person decides (either out of obligation or personality) to get a gift, the next question is what type of gift to give - do you go expensive or thoughtful?  Can a person see both in a gift or just one or the other?  The first thing that a person should take into account when getting a gift for a person is who the person is, what they like, what they value and the reason for the gift.  Understanding gift behaviors revolves around the concepts of exchange, reciprocity and the establishment, maintenance, growth or termination of a relationship (Parsons, A.G.; Ballantie, P.W. & Kennedy, A. (2011). Gift exchange: benefits sought by the recipient, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 31(7/8), 411-423).  Our view is that if the giver is giving a gift because they feel obligated to and don't put that much thought into the gift, it is better to not receive a gift at all.  One example was when being a waitress; a table had left a tip in the amount of, oh around, $2.someoddchange, all in pennies, nickles and dimes.  The waitress casually picked up the change, followed the patrons out to the lobby and kindly gave the money back, stating that nothing would have been better than what they left.  Another example is a friend gave another friend a super uber ugly purse just to give that person a gift and maybe it would have been better to give nothing that something super useless.  Gifts, in our eyes as well as Clarke (2007) think that gifts are valued more for their symbolism than for the transfer of material benefits.   


When it comes to expensive v. thoughtful gifts, it was found that people often struggle to take account of others' perspectives (Flynn, F.J & Adams, G. S. (2009)Money can't buy love: Asymmetic beliefs about gift price and feelings of appreciation, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 404-409) and it seems that, from research perspective, that people tend to lean towards getting the expensive gift as it is easier to go buy something popular and out there rather than think about something that will be sentimental and meaningful.  So when buying the expensive gift, it also seems that the givers think that what they like will be something the recipient will like and that if it is something that everyone is getting, then the recipient will like it.  Most of the time, givers will think that bigger, more expensive gifts will portray stronger signals of thoughtfulness and consideration than gifts that are smaller or emotional.  Flynn (2009) also found that givers who give such extravagant gifts expect more appreciation for their gift.  However, this can be flipped around.  If the recipient is expecting/hoping for an expensive gift and gets something cheaper, they can be disappointed.  So then what makes the thoughtful gift?  To us, it is something that has a meaning between the giver and the recipient.  Something that the giver put some thought into and actually took into consideration what the recipient would like.  And something that the giver gave because they wanted to, not because they had to.  Clarke (2007) found the same thing when he realized what makes a perfect gift : show donor sacrifice, donors sole wish should be recipient pleasure, gift is a luxury, gift is uniquely appropriate to the recipient, surprise and gift succeeds in pleasing the recipient. 

Alrighty, so where does this leave us, what was the purpose of this posting?  That is a good question.  With Christmas now ending (it took some time writing this posting), and people talking about what they got, we got to looking at our respective scenerios.  In the one family, we do not do gifts as when the whole family is together, that is a gift in and of itself, so we have stopped giving gifts.  In the other family, gifts are still given, but just for the sake of giving them, so it may be better just to stop altogether.  The simpliest of gifts can mean the most of people; a single flower, a book, a cd with music on it or, and this is the greatest in our perspectives, hugs.  So when it comes time to giving gifts, look at the reason why you are giving it, to whom you are giving it to, and the gift itself.  And when in doubt, give hugs - A hug is a great gift as one size fits all and it's easy to exchange.