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Money can’t buy love: Asymmetric beliefs about gift price and feelings of appreciation
Abstract
Across three studies, we identify an asymmetry between gift-givers’ and gift-recipients’ beliefs about the link between gift price and feelings of appreciation. Gift-givers expected a positive correlation between how much they spent on a gift and the extent to which gift-recipients would appreciate the gift because gift-givers assume that more expensive gifts convey a higher level of thoughtfulness. Gift-recipients, in contrast, reported no such association between gift price and their actual feelings of appreciation. This effect occurred regardless of whether the individual’s role and the magnitude of the gift were manipulated or measured in the field. Taken together, these findings cast doubt on whether gift-givers can draw on their personal experience as gift-recipients in order to identify meaningful gifts for others.
... The oversensitivity in gift-giving phenomenon often emerges for two of the most important gift-giving constructs: a recipient's appreciation and liking of a gift. For example, givers believe that recipients appreciate expensive gifts more than cheap ones, but recipients actually appreciate expensive and cheap gifts similarly (Flynn & Adams, 2009). As another example, holding the gift itself constant, givers believe that a recipient will like a gift more when it compares favorably to other givers' gifts than when it compares unfavorably, but a recipient's actual liking of a gift does not vary much based on how it compares to other gifts (Givi et al., 2021). ...
... 3 A deeper review of Table 1 suggests that the likelihood that the oversensitivity in gift-giving phenomenon arises does seem to depend on the nature of the characteristics involved. The phenomenon appears to reliably emerge for value-related characteristics, with several studies involving value-related characteristics documenting the phenomenon rather consistently (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Givi et al., 2021), and only a single exception (Givi & Galak, 2022). Attribute-related characteristics also seem relatively likely to produce the phenomenon, with multiple papers incorporating such characteristics documenting the phenomenon (Baskin et al., 2014;Kupor et al., 2017;Yang et al., 2022;Yang & Urminsky, 2018). ...
... Recipients could be following the norm of "not looking a gift horse in the mouth." Social norms indicate that a recipient should not be picky nor judgmental when assessing someone else's gift for them (e.g., Flynn & Adams, 2009)-that is, they should not allow themselves to be affected greatly by differences in gift characteristics. Thus, recipients may strive to ensure that they do not allow their feelings toward a gift to vary much-a form of post-decisional distortion (e.g., Polman, 2010). ...
Many of the papers comprising the gift-giving literature have givers and recipients evaluate potential gifts. That is, these studies either have givers forecast a recipient’s reaction to a gift (e.g., predict how much it would be liked) and recipients react to the same gift (e.g., indicate how much they would like it), or they have both parties react to a gift (e.g., indicate the extent to which it is thoughtful). In the present work, we document how many of the findings in this segment of the gift-giving literature can be summarized by the same underlying theme: givers’ responses exhibit greater sensitivity to differences in a gift’s characteristics (e.g., its level of value, its attributes, the effort it required) than do recipients’ responses. We call this idea the “oversensitivity in gift-giving phenomenon,” and throughout this paper, we document the various findings that emulate this theme, outline its moderators, discuss several theoretical frameworks that could potentially explain why it emerges, detail its practical implications, and shed light on multiple paths for future research.
... For example, Wang and Van der Lans (2018) indicated that reduced price sensitivity is the reason why givers tend to pay more than the receivers' valuation, as givers use price to signal the importance of their relationship with receivers. Additionally, Flynn and Adams (2009) identified a discrepancy between giftgivers and gift-receivers regarding the relationship between gift price and the receiver's feeling of appreciation. The giver believed that a high-priced gift expresses a higher level of thoughtfulness that should improve the receiver's appreciation, but the receiver did not share that perspective. ...
... Previous price-related research also seemed to regard price as the monetary cost, consequently assuming that the more the givers spent on the gift, the more the receivers felt appreciated, and the closer the relationship was between the givers and the receivers (Flynn and Adams, 2009;Wang and Van der Lans, 2018). However, the literature on price perception indicates that price play dual roles indicating not only the monetary sacrifice but also perceived quality (Erickson and Johansson, 1985;Volckner, 2008). ...
... Moreover, the way we manipulated price in the present research was different from that of previous researchers, as they used different products as the target gift to manipulate the price, which might confound the effect of pricing. Specifically, previous researchers have explored the effect of expensive gifts (i.e., an iPod) and inexpensive gifts (i.e., a CD) on givers' and receivers' appreciation (Flynn and Adams, 2009). However, an identical product was used as the target gift in our research, to exclude the potential confounding effect of different products and investigate the effect of pricing on gift evaluation. ...
The present research explored differences in gift evaluation between gift givers and receivers. Three studies were conducted to test how the pricing influenced the gift evaluations of givers and receivers, and whether the price-quality and price-monetary sacrifice inferences were the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that: givers evaluated high-priced gifts as better than low-priced gifts, whereas receivers evaluated low-priced gifts as better than high-priced gifts; price-quality inference mediated the effect of pricing on gift evaluations, but only for givers. Furthermore, the effect of pricing on gift evaluation was moderated by the gift type: givers evaluated the high-priced gift as better only for the desirable gift (but not for the feasible gift); receivers evaluated the low-priced gift as better only for the feasible gift (but not for the desirable gift). The results demonstrate the effect of pricing on gift evaluation and could contribute to understanding the differences between givers’ and receivers’ perception of what a “good gift” is, and the underlying psychological mechanisms.
... Most studies have framed gift cards as an alternative payment option by comparing them to conventional forms of payment. Scholars have examined general consumer behavior when using gift cards, motivations behind giving gift cards from givers' perspectives and recipients' perceptions of receiving gift cards (Flynn and Adams, 2009;Liu and Chou, 2020;Offenberg, 2007;Valentin and Allred, 2012;White, 2006;Yao and Chen, 2014). More specifically, the majority of previous studies mainly investigated the effect of gift cards on consumer reactions by comparing them to other gifts, including cash (Table 1). ...
... Later research on gift-giving investigated behavioral aspects, including gift selection (Yu, 2010), gift preference (Gunasti and Baskin, 2018;Yu, 2010) and purchasing and consuming behavior (Gunasti and Baskin, 2018;Reinholtz et al., 2015). The primary motivation of gift-giving is to facilitate social exchanges between people and to lead to positive social development (Flynn and Adams, 2009). Essentially, the primary reason why people give gifts is to initiate, extend and foster their social relationships (Gunasti and Baskin, 2018;Yu, 2010). ...
... Gift givers may expect that the more they spend on a gift, the more recipients will appreciate it; specifically, the amount spent on a gift could signal to the recipient how much the giver cares. Although this assumption is reasonable from the gift giver's perspective, recipients' appreciation is found to be often unrelated to cost: expensive gifts are not necessarily considered thoughtful or meaningful, just as less expensive gifts do not necessarily indicate less thoughtfulness or meaning (Flynn and Adams, 2009). Recipients may instead gauge the thoughtfulness or meaningfulness by the perceived effort behind the giver's gift selection. ...
Purpose
This study aims to provide a better understanding of how gift card receivers react to the types of gift cards. This study examined the effect of gift card types (intangible experiences vs less intangible experience vs tangible goods) on a recipient’s willingness to spend more through emotions and perceived effort (Study 1) and on feeling of appreciation (Study 2).
Design/methodology/approach
Study 1 adopted a scenario-based 2 (tangible vs intangible) × 3 ($100 vs $200 vs $300) between-subjects design. Study 2 narrowed the scope of gift card type (intangible vs less intangible).
Findings
Receivers tended to perceive less effort in gift card selection and feel less emotion when receiving gift cards for intangible experiences than when receiving gift cards for both tangible and less intangible products. However, as face value increased, gift card receivers for intangible experiences felt more pleasure and, in turn, rated higher willingness to spend more money than face value than those with gift cards for tangible products.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies can rule out alternative explanations related to brand-related effects, previous experiences and personal preferences.
Practical implications
Service providers should put more effort into tangibilizing the intangibles to reduce receivers’ uncertainty. Also, they can increase their profitability by stimulating gift card receivers’ willingness to spend more money through pleasure.
Originality/value
Answering research calls for examining consumers’ perceptions of different gift card types, this study might be the first to unveil the differential effect of gift card types associated with the tangibility of products on purchase behavior and the underlying emotional mechanism.
... As a routine activity for most consumers, gift-giving is a highly ritualized process with role-specific expectations and behaviors like other social exchanges (Adams et al., 2012;Giesler, 2006). Consumers have considerable experiences as givers and recipients, and easily switch roles as needed (Flynn and Adams, 2009). However, givers face problems in taking the perspective of recipients as individuals tend to focus too heavily on their own perspectives (Epley et al., 2002;Weaver et al., 2012;Zhang and Epley, 2012). ...
... Givers spend more time, money and effort into gift shopping with the agapic orientation of demonstrating love and commitment to the relationship (Babin et al., 2007), and consumers choose higher price, higher quality items when purchasing products symbolic of love (McGraw et al., 2016). When it comes to price, givers believe that recipients would appreciate an expensive gift over a cheap gift (Flynn and Adams, 2009), and are less willing to buy a gift that is priced lower than their original budget (Denton and Rucker, 2013). Givers also believe that a completely paid gift is preferred than a partially paid gift (Kupor et al., 2017). ...
... Givers also believe that a completely paid gift is preferred than a partially paid gift (Kupor et al., 2017). In contrast, recipients do not hold the same view as givers; they do not associate the gift price to its value and even prefer a partially paid gift that involves their spending of money (Flynn and Adams, 2009;Kupor et al., 2017). ...
The main purpose of this research is to investigate whether, why, and when givers and recipients perceive the value of a discounted gift differently. The studies provide convergent evidence that givers perceive discounted gifts as less valuable than regular-priced gifts whereas recipients do not perceive them as different. Givers' devaluation of the discounted gift is driven by their concern about the thoughtfulness of a gift. Moreover, the giver-recipient asymmetry is mitigated when the in-store interaction with a salesperson is substituted by technology via a service robot. This research contributes to the gift-giving literature and the growing literature on service robots by revealing how promotional offers influence consumers’ evaluation of gifts and how technological advance in retail may affect the proposed effect. Managerial implications for planning and executing price promotions for gifts are also discussed.
... Although one might assume that the relationship between the cost of prosocial behaviors and benefits to the recipients is linear (i.e., the more costly to the actor, the more beneficial for the recipient), this does not necessarily hold true in the real world. For example, expensive gifts sometimes fail to please recipients (e.g., Dorsch & Kelley, 1994;Flynn & Adams, 2009), and generously motivated behaviors sometimes displease recipients (e.g., Bolger & Amarel, 2007;Feeney, 2004). Moreover, in real-life social exchanges, costs and benefits can take various forms: costs can comprise effort, time, and money (e.g., Duval et al., 1979) and benefits can be physical, financial, or psychological. ...
... Previous studies have examined many factors that influence the evaluation of prosocial actors, which include incentives for prosocial behaviors (Barasch et al., 2014;Lin-Healy & Small, 2012), the type of relationship between the actor and beneficiary (Kawamura & Kusumi, 2017;Lin-Healy & Small, 2013), and motives of prosocial behaviors (Carlson & Zaki, 2018;Newman & Cain, 2014). However, only a few studies have separated the effects of the costs and benefits of prosocial behaviors (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Zhang & Epley, 2009). In an exceptional study, Flynn and Adams (2009) demonstrated that gift givers tend to expect that the cost, rather than the benefit, determines the gratitude of gift recipients, whereas the recipients' gratitude was in fact determined by the benefits accruing from the gift. ...
... However, only a few studies have separated the effects of the costs and benefits of prosocial behaviors (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Zhang & Epley, 2009). In an exceptional study, Flynn and Adams (2009) demonstrated that gift givers tend to expect that the cost, rather than the benefit, determines the gratitude of gift recipients, whereas the recipients' gratitude was in fact determined by the benefits accruing from the gift. Nevertheless, how the costs and benefits of prosocial behaviors independently impact third-party observers' evaluation of prosocial actors has not been systematically investigated. ...
Prosocial behavior consists of a cost to the actor and a benefit of others. Previous studies have shown that prosocial actors generally receive positive social evaluations from observers. However, it is unknown how each component of prosocial behavior (i.e., cost and benefit) influences the two dimensions of person perception (i.e., warmth and competence). Thus, three studies investigated the independent effects of cost and benefit on the perceived warmth and competence of the actor. In Study 1, participants read a series of vignettes about a protagonist incurring a cost to benefit another individual and rated the warmth and competence of each protagonist. Although benefit enhanced both perceived warmth and competence, cost enhanced only perceived warmth. Studies 2a and 2b separately manipulated costs and benefits of prosocial behaviors in vignettes and confirmed the results of Study 1. Thus, this study demonstrated the independent effects of cost and benefit on person perception.
... For example, Gino and Flynn (2011) documented an asymmetry in the two parties' views on requested and unrequested gifts. Flynn and Adams (2009) givers give and what recipients prefer to receive. For example, Baskin et al. (2014) showed that givers favor desirable gifts over feasible gifts more often than recipients would prefer. ...
... Cheal (1988) studied various gifting-related constructs, like identity, social ties, and norms. These papers paved the way for future research on these issues (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Heath et al., 2011;Saad & Gill, 2003;Ward & Broniarczyk, 2011;Zhang & Epley, 2012). ...
Gift‐giving is a typical consumer behavior with important implications for consumers and marketers. Accordingly, consumer gift‐giving behavior has received much attention from marketing scholars. We conduct a bibliometric analysis of 237 articles on gift‐giving from the Web of Science database. This analysis identifies the bibliometric attributes of the gift‐giving literature, including its publication trend, influential outlets, impactful articles, prolific scholars, international scope, state of collaboration, and featured topics and themes. Using content analysis, we identify three themes that categorize the consumer gift‐giving literature's key segments: (1) broad and nuanced outlooks of the social side of gift‐giving, (2) the less pleasant side of gift‐giving, and (3) the foundational research on consumer gift‐giving. This paper provides readers with a state‐of‐the‐art overview of consumer gift‐giving literature and identifies opportunities for future gift‐giving research.
... This research focuses on the recipient's' behavior in gift acceptance and their feelings of appreciation for the gifts. From the recipient's perspective, the likelihood of accepting a gift is not only about the gift itself, but also the status of the giver, the occasion and the obligation to reciprocate (Flynn and Adams, 2009). Generally, recipients are willing to accept smaller and less expensive items from family and friends, as they do not feel obligated to reciprocate (Flynn and Adams, 2009). ...
... From the recipient's perspective, the likelihood of accepting a gift is not only about the gift itself, but also the status of the giver, the occasion and the obligation to reciprocate (Flynn and Adams, 2009). Generally, recipients are willing to accept smaller and less expensive items from family and friends, as they do not feel obligated to reciprocate (Flynn and Adams, 2009). They are significantly happier with desired gifts from close friends compared with gifts from distant friends (Ward and Broniarczyk, 2016). ...
Purpose
This research examines cultural differences between Thais and Americans in recipients' attitudes and behaviors throughout all three stages of Sherry's (1983) gift-giving model and the moderating effect of relationship closeness on the gift-giving process.
Design/methodology/approach
Three experiments tested recipients' attitudes and behaviors across cultures in each gift-giving stage. Study 1 explored the gestation stage (gift search and purchase). Study 2 tested recipients in the prestation stage (actual exchange), and Study 3 examined the reformulation stage (gift disposition and realignment of the relationship).
Findings
Results show that relationship closeness between the giver and the recipient plays a role among interdependent self-construals. Thais (interdependent self-construals) are more likely to give a hint or make a request for a gift to close friends than distant friends and are also more likely to accept, keep and use gifts from close friends than from distant friends. Moreover, for interdependent self-construals, a gift from a close friend improved the relationship more than a gift from a distant friend. In contrast, Americans (independent self-construals) present no differences between close and distant friends.
Originality/value
This research provides a comprehensive picture of the recipient's perspective in cross-cultural gift-giving and expands the notion of relationship closeness as a moderator.
... Understanding the full extent to which their reach outs are appreciated is important because it would likely contribute to people initiating social contact, to the benefit of themselves and others. Furthermore, examining responder appreciation of reaching out is an important outcome because appreciation is an important signal of relationship development (Gordon et al., 2012), and thus how much an exchange is appreciated is also a focal outcome shared by prior work on gifting (Cavanaugh et al., 2015;Flynn & Adams, 2009;Gino & Flynn, 2011;Liu, Lamberton, & Haws, 2015) and by prior work on prosocial behaviors (Converse & Fishbach, 2012). ...
... Thinking back on this time, participants were then asked to rate a set of four items measuring appreciation on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = to a great extent), adapted from Flynn and Adams (2009). Initiators (responders) indicated the extent to which they thought that this person (they) appreciated, felt grateful, felt thankful, and felt pleased that they (this person) reached out to them. ...
... Understanding the full extent to which their reach outs are appreciated is important because it would likely contribute to people initiating social contact, to the benefit of themselves and others. Furthermore, examining responder appreciation of reaching out is an important outcome because appreciation is an important signal of relationship development (Gordon et al., 2012), and thus how much an exchange is appreciated is also a focal outcome shared by prior work on gifting (Cavanaugh et al., 2015;Flynn & Adams, 2009;Gino & Flynn, 2011;Liu, Lamberton, & Haws, 2015) and by prior work on prosocial behaviors (Converse & Fishbach, 2012). ...
... Thinking back on this time, participants were then asked to rate a set of four items measuring appreciation on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = to a great extent), adapted from Flynn and Adams (2009). Initiators (responders) indicated the extent to which they thought that this person (they) appreciated, felt grateful, felt thankful, and felt pleased that they (this person) reached out to them. ...
People are fundamentally social beings and enjoy connecting with others. Sometimes, people reach out to others-whether simply to check-in on how others are doing with brief messages or to show that they are thinking of others by sending small gifts to them. Yet, despite the importance and enjoyment of social connection, do people accurately understand how much other people value being reached out to by someone in their social circle? Across a series of preregistered experiments, we document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to. We find evidence compatible with an account wherein one reason this underestimation of appreciation occurs is because responders (vs. initiators) are more focused on their feelings of surprise at being reached out to. A focus on feelings of surprise in turn predicts greater appreciation. We further identify process-consistent moderators of the underestimation of reach-out appreciation, finding that it is magnified when the reach-out context is more surprising: when it occurs within a surprising (vs. unsurprising) context for the recipient and when it occurs between more socially distant (vs. socially close) others. Altogether, this research thus identifies when and why we underestimate how much other people appreciate us reaching out to them, implicating a heightened focus on feelings of surprise as one underlying explanation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
... Within the field of marketing, gift-giving is explored by those who specialize in consumer culture theory (e.g., Otnes et al., 1993), consumer behavior (e.g., Grossman & Rahinel, 2022), and quantitative marketing/modeling (e.g., Wang & van der Lans, 2018). Outside the marketing domain, it is studied by researchers in the fields of anthropology (e.g., Mauss, 1925), sociology (e.g., Cheal, 1987), communications (e.g., Sunwolf, 2006), philosophy (e.g., Olson, 2002), psychology (e.g., Aknin & Human, 2015), management (e.g., Flynn & Adams, 2009), and economics (e.g., Waldfogel, 1993). ...
... Turning now to the monetary aspect of givers' inputs, most of the evidence points to givers valuing the money spent on a gift more than recipients do. In psychologybased work, for instance, givers tend to overestimate the correlation between the price they pay for a gift and the recipient's appreciation of it (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Givi & Galak, 2022a). Moreover, research in this realm indicates that givers' fixation on gift prices can lead them to spend more when they fear or know that other people at the gift exchange will be giving expensive gifts Wooten, 2000). ...
In recent decades, scholars across all areas of marketing have studied consumer gift‐giving behavior. Despite the growing popularity of this research topic, no extensive review of the gift‐giving literature exists. To that end, this paper offers an expansive review of research on consumer gift‐giving, focusing primarily on work coming from within the marketing discipline, but also drawing on foundational pieces from other fields. We review extant scholarship on five of gift‐giving’s most important aspects—givers’ motivations, givers’ inputs, giver‐recipient mismatches, value creation/reduction, and the greater gift‐giving context. In doing so, we illuminate the literature’s key agreements and disagreements, shed light on themes that traverse ostensibly disparate gift‐giving findings, and develop deeper conceptualizations of gifting constructs. Moreover, we identify opportunities for improvement in the gift‐giving literature and use them to create key agendas for future gift‐giving research. In sum, this paper offers a single point of reference for gift‐giving scholars, improves academia’s current understanding of gift‐giving, offers several theoretical contributions, and generates multiple paths for future research.
... For example, givers (vs. recipients) are more responsive to the amount of money (Flynn & Adams, 2009), brainstorming (Gino & Flynn, 2011), and effort (Zhang & Epley, 2012) that the giver devotes towards a gift. In other words, when it is clear that their gifting inputs were lacking, givers tend to evaluate their actions more critically than recipients. ...
... Accordingly, our research sheds further light on the importance of thoughtfulness in gift-giving. Moreover, our theorizing suggests that (at least part of) the reason givers construe earmarking as less thoughtful compared to recipients is because givers are more sensitive to their inputs towards a gift (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Gino & Flynn, 2011;Zhang & Epley, 2012 if they are missing the mark. Indeed, the myriad of popular press articles on best practices when giving cash and/or earmarking cash gifts (e.g., Cain, 2021;Martin, 2018) Wu et al., 2021). ...
Much research has shed light on the what to give facet of gift-giving; that is, which types of products should consumers give as gifts? However, little research has investigated the how to give component of gift-giving; that is, holding the gift itself constant, how should it be given? In the present work, we explore the messaging aspect of how to give, thereby expanding the gift-giving literature. Specifically, we investigate gift-givers' and gift-recipients' preferences regarding the practice of earmarking cash gifts (i.e., suggesting that a cash gift be used on a particular product). Across multiple studies, we demonstrate that givers are less likely to earmark cash gifts than recipients prefer, because givers view earmarking as less thoughtful compared to recipients. Moreover, consistent with a thoughtfulness account, we show that givers are more likely to earmark in situations where they view earmarking as thoughtful. We conclude by discussing how our work offers a unique contribution to the gift-giving literature (as it is the first to document a giver-recipient asymmetry involving how to give), suggests that givers should earmark cash gifts more often, and clears many paths for future research (on other potential giver-recipient asymmetries tied to how to give).
... At the same time, however, other research has shown that consumers do not always shun products that require effort or time, particularly when those products can be used symbolically to signal closeness and love to others. For example, gift givers believe that effort is valued by recipients, so that giving a "good gift" means investing extra time, money, and thought into searching for what to get a recipient (Flynn and Adams 2009;Ward and Broniarczyk 2016;Zhang and Epley 2012) even in situations when recipients do not know who the giver is (e.g., a Secret Santa exchange; Steffel and LeBoeuf 2014). In addition, hard work and effort in the creation of products not only signals care and concern to others, but it can also serve as a signal to oneself, as effort increases consumers' feelings of selfefficacy, competence, and control (Cutright and Samper 2014;Norton et al. 2012); in the domain of charitable giving, for example, consumers change their moral selfperceptions only after a costly prosocial behavior (Gneezy et al. 2012). ...
... The finding that consumers feel better about themselves because they believe their caregiving gestures have more symbolic meaning is consistent with past work in other domains, like gift-giving (Flynn and Adams 2009;Zhang and Epley 2012) and taboo trade-offs (McGraw and Tetlock 2005;Tetlock 2003), that have shown that consumers think it is important-even morally important-not to take shortcuts on behalf of those they love. However, even though qualitative work on outsourcing parenting tasks has also suggested similar hesitations (Epp and Velagaleti 2014), recent experimental research indicates that outsourcing household tasks-that is, by paying for housekeeping or yardwork-can make consumers happier (Whillans et al. 2017). ...
Many products and services are designed to make caregiving easier, from premade meals for feeding families to robo-cribs that automatically rock babies to sleep. Yet, using these products may come with a cost: consumers may feel they have not exerted enough effort. Nine experiments show that consumers feel like better caregivers when they put more effort into caregiving tasks than when they use effort-reducing products to perform such tasks. The beneficial effect of effort on caregivers’ self-perceptions is driven by the symbolic meaning of caregiving (i.e., the task’s ability to show love) independent of the quality of care provided (i.e., the task’s ability to meet needs), and is most pronounced when expressing symbolic meaning is most important: when caregivers are providing emotional support rather than physical support, when they are caring for another person with whom they have a close relationship, and when there is a relationship norm that investing effort shows love. Finally, this work demonstrates that marketers can make effort-reducing products more appealing by acknowledging caregivers’ efforts rather than emphasizing how these products make caregiving less effortful. Together, these findings expand our current understanding of effort, caregiving, and consumer choice in close relationships.
... We also administered the Impression Management Scale (Paulhus, 1991; α = .77) following Flynn and Adams (2009) to measure the extent to which the participants presented themselves in a socially desirable manner. Finally, to confirm that assistance provided in the two-player game was perceived as partial help, we spot-checked a few participants by asking them to draw a shaded area in a rectangle denoting how much help they had provided or received. ...
... Thus, the helper gives the help-seeker a partial ride. Helpers were instructed to predict the extent to which they thought that the colleague appreciated their help based on three items (1= not at all, 7 = extremely; Flynn & Adams, 2009). The three items were highly correlated (αs ≥ .94) ...
When being asked for help, people sometimes can only offer part of what is requested (i.e., partial help). The present research investigates whether helpers can accurately forecast how much help-seekers appreciate this understudied form of assistance. From multiple helping scenarios and a face-to-face interaction, we demonstrate an asymmetry in helpers’ and help-seeker’s appraisals of partial help: Helpers anticipated less appreciation for partial help than help-seekers felt in receiving it. This asymmetry arose from helpers’ greater valuation of helping outcomes over intentions to be helpful than help-seekers’. Accordingly, when helpers’ intentions were discounted, this asymmetry no longer persisted. Another account—helpers feel worse for breaking norms of helping than help-seekers—was not supported. We discuss several directions for future research on the psychology of partial prosocial behaviors.
... Exploring laypeople, recipient's perceptions of feeling loved using a data-driven approach would be a good supplement to the current expert-generated theoretical approach. Not only because laypeople may have a different perspective or other experiences of love (Fehr, 1994), but also because they are the recipients of their subjective experience, and their self-report is potentially the best way to capture love as a feeling (Flynn & Adams, 2009). ...
With research long focusing on distinct characteristics of different love types, little is known about love as a general feeling across relationship contexts. To explore the core elements of love as perceived by laypeople and whether these elements weigh differently in different relationships, grounded theory was used to analyze open-ended responses from 468 individuals about their feeling loved in family, romantic, and friend relationships. Results indicated that the feeling of love is an interpersonal process in which one receives positive responsiveness from the other and experiences an authentic connection with the other, consistently across conditions and time (i.e., in a sense of stability); three core elements were shared across family, romantic, and friend relationships. Chi-square independence tests revealed differentiated weights for love elements in three relationships, which corresponded to the prototypical love definition in family, romantic, and friend relationships. Findings suggested an integrated theoretical conceptualization of love as a shared feeling and asset across relationships, which provided important insights on love conceptualization, assessment, and study design, as well as implications for the treatment of dysfunctional relationships, best practices in daily interpersonal interactions, and improvement in intervention and therapy.
... Traditionally gifts are given and received to mark a special time, event, or as a token of appreciation (Flynn & Adams, 2009), thus forming positions and roles for the giver and receiver. In these exchanges the gift as relational object links giver and receiver and becomes infused with intentions and expectations. ...
This article takes off from a project entitled Get Up and Move! which used walking as a methodology to envisage research in higher education beyond the human and outside individual, instrumental and competitive codings. The Get Up and Move! project activated new research possibilities for walking as an attentive, situated, emplaced and embodied practice of posthuman thinking, doing and becoming; it experimented with walking’s posthuman generativity as a relational and processual methodology; and it aimed to be inventive, experimental, less elitist, and more inclusive. The project’s posthuman orientation was inspired by Donna Haraway’s (2016) concept of sympoiesis as a human-nonhuman doing-making-thinking-creating together, which is outlined in the first two parts of the article. This remainder of the article conceptually entangles this initial framing with/in a further process of concept-ing, which designates a theoretical-creative-speculative doing with the concept to unfold its ongoing potentialities and push its inventive mobilities. The concept we do our concept-ing with is the concept of the gift. Working from Mauss’s theorisation of the gift, we practice concept-ing as a means to trace new movements, possibilities and imaginaries for walking sympoietically. Our concept-ings pursue van der Tuin and Verhoeff’s (2022, 3) suggestion that concepts are “productive and experimental ‘doings,’ enmeshed in practice rather than fixed, retrospective labels for things.”
... Indeed, givers often rate this as one of their chief concerns when asked about their gifting considerations (Steffel and LeBoeuf, 2014;Teigen et al., 2005;Ward and Broniarczyk, 2016). One factor that givers see as influencing a recipient's liking of a gift is the gift's price (Flynn and Adams, 2009). Building on this notion, we contest that givers see gift price as mattering more for some recipients than for others. ...
Purpose
This study aims to add to the gift giving literature by examining how the wealth of a recipient impacts giver spending. The authors tested the hypotheses that givers spend more on wealthy (vs unwealthy) recipients, partially because givers anticipate a greater difference in gift-liking across expensive and cheap gifts when the recipient is wealthy, and partially because givers are more motivated to signal that they are of high financial status when the recipient is wealthy. The authors also tested whether givers’ tendency to spend more on wealthy (vs unwealthy) recipients attenuates when the recipient is someone with whom the giver has a negative (vs positive) relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight experimental studies tested the hypotheses. These studies had participants act as givers, consider giving a gift to either a wealthy or unwealthy recipient and indicate how much money they would spend on the gift. Some studies included additional measures to test potential mediators, while another included an additional manipulation to test a potential boundary condition.
Findings
Gift givers spend more on gifts for wealthy (vs unwealthy) recipients, for two main reasons. On the one hand, givers are influenced by an other-oriented motive – they wish for their gift to be well-liked by the recipient and anticipate a greater difference in recipient gift-liking across expensive and cheap gifts when the recipient is wealthy. On the other hand, givers are influenced by a self-oriented motive – they wish to signal to the recipient that they are of high financial status, but this desire is stronger when the recipient is wealthy. Critically, givers are relatively unlikely to spend more on wealthy (vs unwealthy) recipients when they have a negative (vs positive) relationship with the recipient.
Research limitations/implications
The authors studied how the wealth of the gift recipient influences givers’ gift expenditure, but they did not examine the recipient’s perspective. Future research could address this by exploring whether recipients’ gift preferences vary based on their wealth.
Practical implications
Gift purchases account for a significant portion of worldwide consumer spending, making gift giving an important topic for consumers and marketers alike. The present research sheds light on a factor that has a notable impact on how much consumers spend on a gift when faced with a gift giving decision.
Originality/value
This manuscript contributes to the gift giving literature by exploring an important aspect that influences consumer gift expenditure (the wealth of the recipient), demonstrating a novel gift giving phenomenon [that givers spend more when giving to relatively wealthy (vs unwealthy) recipients], and shedding new light on the psychology of consumers in gift giving contexts (namely, how givers’ perceptions of recipient gift-liking, their desire to send signals of high financial status and their relationship with the recipient can influence their gifting decisions).
... Rejecting the highcost object in favor of the low-cost one would likely offend the friend who invested more, so it is arguably rational to consider sunk costs in this situation. This proposal is consistent with findings that people expect others to appreciate expensive gifts more than inexpensive ones (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Zhang & Epley, 2012). Future work needs to be conducted to confirm this speculation by further examining children and adults' interpersonal choices. ...
Young children anticipate that others act rationally in light of their beliefs and desires, and environmental constraints. However, little is known about whether children anticipate others’ irrational choices. We investigated young children's ability to predict that sunk costs can lead to irrational choices. Across four experiments, 5- to 6-year-olds (total N = 185) and adults (total N = 117) judged which of two identical objects an agent would keep, one obtained at a high cost or one obtained at a low cost. In Experiment 1, adults predicted that the agent would choose the high-cost object over the low-cost one, whereas children responded at chance. Experiment 2 replicated these findings in children, but also included another condition which showed they were sensitive to future costs. They predicted that an agent would be more likely to seek out a low-cost item than a high-cost item. Experiments 3 and 4 then found that children do not anticipate the sunk cost bias in first person scenarios, or in interpersonal sunk cost scenarios, where costs are sunk by others. Taken together, our findings suggest that young children may struggle to understand and predict irrational behavior. The findings also reveal an asymmetry between how they consider sunk costs and future costs in understanding actions. We propose that this asymmetry might arise because children do not consider sunk costs as wasted.
... experiential) gifts since they are tangible, and the outcome of gift-giving is easier to predict. Lastly, as gift-givers and recipients view gifts from different perspectives (Flynn & Adams, 2009), future research may investigate cultural differences in asymmetries between gift-givers and recipients in their preference for experiential (vs. material) gifts. ...
In this research, we propose that consumers’ degree of independence (not consumers’ degree of interdependence) predicts their preference for giving experiential (vs. material) gifts. Across four studies, we find that consumers from the U.S. (vs. India), consumers with independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal, consumers with a high (vs. low) level of independence, and Whites (vs. Asians) prefer giving experiential (vs. material) gifts. Furthermore, we demonstrate that promotion focus underlies this effect, ruling out alternative explanations (i.e., reliance on feelings and the need for unique products). This research makes theoretical contributions and provides actionable managerial implications for marketers by identifying who would prefer giving experiential (vs. material) gifts.
... However, studies that include a consequence for aggression have found that participants are willing to punish others even if there is a personal cost to doing so (e.g., dictator game; Will et al., 2015). Similarly, prosocial behavior in the real-world often comes at a cost to an individual (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003;Kraft-Todd & Rand, 2019;Zhang & Epley, 2009), and perceptions of prosocial behavior are influenced by the cost of that behavior (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Kawamura et al., 2021). While some studies show that participants will help others despite a personal cost (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003;Gneezy et al., 2012;Penner et al., 2005), others find helping is reduced by personal cost (Andreoni & Miller, 2002;Bode et al., 2015;Sommerville et al., 2018;Zhang & Epley, 2009). ...
Social rejection elicits profound feelings of distress. From an evolutionary perspective, the best way to alleviate this distress is to behave prosocially, minimizing the likelihood of further exclusion. Yet, examples ranging from the playground to the pub suggest rejection commonly elicits aggression. Opposing theoretical perspectives and discordant empirical results have left a basic question unanswered: does rejection more commonly elicit prosocial or aggressive behavior? We conducted three meta‐analyses (one with studies measuring aggressive behavior; one with studies measuring prosocial behavior; and one with studies measuring both aggressive and prosocial behavior; N = 3864) to quantify: (1) the extent to which social rejection elicits prosocial or aggressive behavior and (2) potential moderating effects on these relations. Random‐effects models revealed medium effects such that social rejection potentiated aggressive behavior (k = 19; d = 0.41, p < .0001) and attenuated prosocial behavior (k = 7; d = 0.59, p < .0001), an effect that remained consistent even when participants were given the option to behave prosocially or aggressively (k = 15; d = 0.71, p < .0001). These results cast doubt on the theory that rejection triggers prosocial behavior, and instead suggest it is a robust elicitor of aggression. Statement of Relevance: To our knowledge, these meta‐analyses are the first to directly test whether social rejection elicits aggressive or prosocial behavior. By including a comprehensive collection of both published and unpublished research studies, and examining a wide variety of previously untested moderators, we show that social rejection robustly elicits aggressive behavior and inhibits prosocial behavior. Additionally, we demonstrate that aggressive behavior following social rejection is not simply a function of limited choices in response options. In fact, aggressive behavior was evoked even when the option to engage in prosocial behavior was provided. Furthermore, we conducted a comprehensive narrative review of the neural mechanisms underlying social rejection‐elicited aggressive and prosocial behavior to supplement primary analyses. Overall, we believe that our work makes a critical theoretical contribution to the field.
... Next, participants indicated gift appreciation (Flynn and Adams 2009): To what extent would you . . . (1) feel pleased about receiving this gift? ...
... Past research indicates that people sometimes consider social interchanges as exchange or economic market transactions, and sometimes as a communal or social market transactions (Clark & Aragón, 2013;Clark & Mills, 1979;Gneezy & Rustichini, 2000;Goffman, 1961;Heyman & Ariely, 2004;Netzer, Lemaire, & Herzenstein, 2019), and that they actively monitor their gains and losses based on the mental market according to which they operate. Unlike an exchange market interactions, in which givers expect to receive something of equivalent material value in return (e.g., employer-employee or tenant-landlord relationships), in a communal market, where efforts and payments (e. g., interpersonal interaction with friends) are vaguely defined, interchanges are characterized by informal and unenforceable contracts governed by social norms (Belk & Coon, 1983;Fiske, 1992;Flynn & Adams, 2009;McGraw & Tetlock, 2005). Whether one adopts a communal or an exchange mindset may also be state dependent, where incidental cues may influence the extent to which these mindsets play a role in certain social interchanges. ...
In a series of six experiments, conducted in both field and laboratory settings, we demonstrate in the context of small interpersonal loans between friends, that individuals operate under different mindsets depending on their role in the loan (lender vs. borrower), which consequently leads to misaligned repayment expectations. Lenders, operating under a communal mindset, do not expect borrowers to repay small amounts that borrowers, operating under an exchange mindset, intend to repay. We show that the two-mindset hypothesis is both state- and trait-dependent and discuss how the observed repayment expectation gap may explain why many small interpersonal debts remain unpaid. We also discuss the contribution to social and economics literature, implications for interpersonal relationships, and directions for future research.
... Notably, the reinterpretation of these ideas has been the critical reflection of the new European culture and has begun during the lifetime of the famous philosopher (Nietzsche, 1900). However, the theoretical, ideological, cultural, logical, and other prerequisites for the domination of the binary opposition in modern society were formulated only in the middle of the twentieth century (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Serpell, 2010). ...
The article is dedicated to the characteristics of the “life/death” explication in prose narratives of Slavic folklore in particular. The authors were able to study and understand the archaic beliefs immanent for the ancient Slavs through researching the words and fairy-tale images that personified life and death in this type of literature. The relevance of this topic derives from the insufficiency in the research of representation of “life/death” binary opposition in various languages and in folk prose narratives. This study contributes to understanding the attitude towards this binary opposition in the distant past and its impact on the modern people’s attitude towards life and death. The purpose of the study is to investigate the binary opposition and its perception among people through folk prose narratives. The authors chose an integrated methodological approach for researching this issue. It helps to comprehensively analyse the attitude towards the binary opposition. The study successfully used the methodology and techniques applied in humanities, primarily in philology and philosophy. While researching the topic the authors found out that in some cases this binary opposition is perceived figuratively, and in others cases it is dramatically diametrical, which is reflected in fairy tales, proverbs, curses, etc.
... It has also been found that while many people assume that the more they spend on a gift, the more it will be appreciated, that is many times untrue. Givers in one study spent more on gifts to impress a recipient with their caring, not their wealth, and recipients preferred gifts that they really needed or that had special personal meaning, regardless of price (Flynn & Adams 2009). ...
This research explores employee response toward change initiatives in order to create a
working model to identify factors which influence employee response toward changes in the
organization. Change issues include re-structuring; merger and acquisition; transfers, lateral
moves and hiring; etc. This study identifies a workable model to allow management within
organizations undergoing change and transformation to predict the response of its employees
with respect to the identified factors. The resulting instrument is proven to be highly reliable and
will assist organizations managing change initiatives.
... It has also been found that while many people assume that the more they spend on a gift, the more it will be appreciated, that is many times untrue. Givers in one study spent more on gifts to impress a recipient with their caring, not their wealth, and recipients preferred gifts that they really needed or that had special personal meaning, regardless of price (Flynn & Adams 2009). ...
This paper studies the ethical response behavior of Indian consumers. Data was collected
from 374 respondents using a questionnaire survey covering issues on the environment and
marketing of products. The study reveals that respondent awareness of the extent of damage
done as a result of economic activity is steadily growing. Consumers are becoming conscious of
adverse affects and are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products. Further, it is evident from
this study that Asian Indians are aware and concerned about the environmental conditions but the
commitment level to take proactive individual actions is moderate.
... The first component, egocentrism, refers to givers focusing more on their own thoughts and feelings than on their recipients' perspective. As a result, for example, givers believe that investing more thought or money into a gift will increase recipients' appreciation of it, despite that recipients are relatively unmoored by such investments by givers (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Zhang & Epley, 2012). The second component, warm glow, describes that giving a gift to another person increases one's own personal happiness. ...
How people choose gifts is a widely studied topic, but what happens next is largely understudied. In two preregistered studies, one field experiment, and an analysis of secondary data, we show that giving gifts has a dark side, as it can negatively affect subsequent interpersonal behavior between givers and receivers. In Study 1, we found that giving a gift to one's romantic partner changes givers' interpretation of which behaviors constitute infidelity. Specifically, we found that givers (vs. nongivers) classified their questionable behaviors (e.g., sending a flirtatious text to someone other than their partner) less as a form of cheating on their partner. In Study 2, we examined how politely participants behave when delivering bad news to a friend. We found that givers (vs. nongivers) wrote significantly less polite messages to their friend. In Study 3, we tested real gifts that people give to friends and found givers (vs. nongivers) subsequently made more selfish decisions at their friends' expense. In all, our research refines the oft‐cited axiomatic assumption that gift giving strengthens relationships and illuminates the potential for future research to examine how decision making can alter interpersonal, romantic relationships.
... Such gifts are perceived as symbolic gestures that gift givers use to indicate their willingness to commit to a long-term relationship. In order to reduce the extend of DWL from unwanted gifts, therefore, it is crucial to focus on recipients' needs and preferences as well as their personal values, rather than attempts to find more expensive gifts to impress the recipients can mitigate the effect of unwanted gifts (Flynn and Adams, 2009). ...
Contrasting views on whether gifts are undervalued or overvalued have featured in the Western literature. Most previous studies point to gift undervaluation, which leads to receivers re-gifting or returning what they have received from their loved ones. This study takes the discussion further by investigating the existence of Deadweight Loss (DWL) in gifts received during Valentine's Day. The study finds no evidence of DWL in the assessment of gifts, although, face-saving plays a role in the evaluation of cash-gifts. The absence of DWL in the valuation of gifts significantly implies that post-purchase returns of unwanted gifts are unlikely in the context of Vietnamese Valentine's gifts.
... In hospitality research, perceived value has been widely investigated for its positive influence on visitors' satisfaction, purchase intention, and WOM in various contexts, such as lodging (Hartline & Jones, 1996;Rasoolimanesh, Dahalan, & Jaafar, 2016), destination (Lban, Kaşli, & Bezirgan, 2015), cruise (Han, Hwang, Lee, & Kim, 2019), and tourist shopping (Vega-Vázquez, Castellanos-Verdugo, & Oviedo-García, 2017). Gift recipients are more concerned with the perceived value of the gifts rather than the price (Flynn & Adams, 2009;Robben & Verhallen, 1994;Shen et al., 2011). Recipients usually evaluate the value of a gift based on its functionality, usefulness, and versatility (Galak et al., 2016). ...
Although most meetings offer free giveaways to attendees, the role these giveaways plays in influencing attendees' behavioral intentions has received limited attention. This study contributes to event research by examining the impact of giveaways on meeting attendees' word-of-mouth (WOM) intention. Two 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental designs were utilized for this study. Results showed that high-value giveaways lead to greater WOM intention among meeting attendees compared to low-value giveaways. Moreover, the study found that cuteness and experienced unexpectedness moderate the effect of meeting giveaways' value on attendees' WOM intention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... This work also contributes to the literature on gift-giving. Research on gift-giving has primarily evaluated the positive benefits of giving-gifts (e.g., Aknin and Human 2015; Chan and Mogilner 2017), evaluating how much recipients appreciate, value, and like the gifts that they receive (e.g.,Flynn and Adams 2009;Gino and Flynn 2011). Our work instead evaluates the cost to status and resulting negative emotions that result as a function of gift-giving motivation. ...
Consumers feel increasingly pressed for time and money. Gifts have the potential to reduce scarcity in recipients’ lives, yet little is known about how recipients perceive gifts given with the intention of saving them time or money. Across five studies (N = 1, 816), we demonstrate that the recipients of gifts intending to save money experience more negative emotions and infer a lower status position than recipients of gifts intending to save time. Recipients experiencing greater financial scarcity (who may benefit most from gifts intending to save them money), experience negative emotions to a greater extent and perceive an even lower status position than recipients who experience relatively little financial scarcity. These findings are the first to directly evaluate the implications of receiving gifts seeking to address time and money scarcity and suggest that recipients may respond negatively to gifts given with the intention of saving money.
... The gift becomes a representation of the giver, who gives a portion of himself to the recipient. Flynn and Adams (2009) reinforce this, suggesting that the giver's primary concern should be commitment to finding something that delights the recipient, regardless of the price. ...
The consumption of gifts is relevant and many commerce sales are carried out during traditional times of gift-giving, such as Christmas. The objective of this paper is to propose and validate a model that measures the influence of personal values in the act of gift giving, also considering the role of gender in these relationships. A survey was carried out on 1,085 consumers. Through structural equation modeling with partial least squares (SEM-PLS), it was verified that the gift giving act is influenced by five personal values: self-direction, hedonism, tradition, achievement, and power. The results show that personal values can be used to predict the behavior of gifting. This study integrates Gift-Giving Theory and Personal Values Theory to better understand consumer attitudes and behaviors.
Consumers often set budgets with the goal to minimize their spending. Contrary to this traditional interpretation, our research suggests that budgets can take on a different psychological meaning depending on whether the budget is for a personal or gift purchase. Across 11 studies, we find that consumers aim to spend below their budgets for personal purchases (budget minimizing) but aim to spend the entirety of their budgets for gift purchases (budget maximizing). We differentiate budget maximizing from spending maximizing, showing that gift purchasers are more likely to prefer “at-budget” than “above-budget” purchases. We also show that gift purchasers have weaker savings goals than personal purchasers—a difference that mediates the effect on their budget-minimizing and -maximizing tendencies. We explore multiple reasons that could explain why savings goals are less prevalent among gift purchasers and find an upstream role for price consciousness, guilt, and perceived specialness. Finally, we find that consumers’ preference for spending the entirety of their budgets on gifts was moderated by two separate factors: consumers’ budget slack and salience. Our research adds to the literatures on mental budgeting, gift giving, and self-other decisions.
Gift giving is a ubiquitous phenomenon and a significant economic factor. Christmas alone, as the most important occasion for consuming gifts in Christian-based cultures, generates billions in sales for retailers. In addition, there are gifts for various traditional occasions such as birthdays and weddings, Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, as well as commercially invented gift occasions such as Valentine’s Day. But gift-giving is not only economically but also psychologically of extraordinary importance. For the processes of giving and receiving gifts that accompany us throughout the year and throughout life have an ambivalent character. On the one hand, they are voluntary acts that trigger strong positive emotions such as joy and gratitude. On the other hand, they are governed by a plethora of norms which, because of their obligatory character, cause uncertainty and frustration and, when rules are violated, strong negative emotions such as disappointment and anger.
The price of a gift is not only an objective parameter, but also has symbolic value. A gift that is perceived as too cheap can be interpreted by the recipient as an expression of low esteem. Accordingly, givers usually assume that as the price of a gift increases, the recipient’s satisfaction and gratitude will also increase, as they see the expense as a signal of closeness in the relationship. However, this is only partially the case. Especially if the price is perceived as too high by the recipient, the expensive gift can trigger ambivalent to negative feelings and psychological resistance.
This research examines the effects of gift prices on recipients’ gratitude. Five studies show an inverted U-shaped relationship between gift price and recipients’ gratitude. Recipients are more likely to appreciate gifts of monetary value that align with their expectations than inexpensive or expensive gifts whose values do not meet the recipients’ expectations. Two parallel underlying mechanisms explain the inverted U-shaped relationship: when gift prices are lower than expected, recipients perceive givers as inconsiderate, and when gift prices are higher than expected, recipients feel indebted. Additionally, we examine two boundary conditions. Compared to North Americans, Asians are more likely to show an inverted U-shaped relationship. In addition, close friends, rather than distant friends, are more likely to show an inverted U-shaped relationship. The paper concludes with a discussion of contributions to the literature on gift-giving and practical implications.
Bu araştırmada Türkiye'deki kamu ve özel okullarda öğrenci ve velilerin öğretmenlere hediye verme davranışlarının derinlemesine incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Bu kapsamda okullarda öğretmenlere veliler ve öğrenciler tarafından ne tür hediyelerin verildiği, hediyelerin hangi zamanlarda verildiği ve sürecin nasıl düzenlendiği saptanmaya çalışılmıştır. Ayrıca araştırmada öğretmen ve yöneticilerin verilen hediyelere nasıl tepki verdikleri de incelenmiştir. Nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden olgubilim (fenomenoloji) deseni ile yürütülen bu çalışmada, Türkiye'deki kamu ve özel okullarda görev yapan 14 öğretmen ve 10 yönetici olmak üzere toplam 24 katılımcı ile yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Veriler araştırmacılar tarafından geliştirilen görüşme formu aracılığıyla toplanmış ve tümevarımsal içerik analizi ile çözümlenmiştir. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre öğretmenlere sunulan hediyeler genellikle çiçek, öğrencinin kendi yaptığı ürünler ve takı olarak sıralanmaktadır. Bunların yanında küçük sembolik hediyeler, giyecek, yiyecek, ev eşyası, kırtasiye malzemeleri ve kozmetik ürünler de öğretmenlere hediye olarak verilmektedir. Hediyelerin özellikle Öğretmenler Günü ve mezuniyet törenleri gibi özel günlerde verildiği saptanmıştır. Velilerin öğretmenlere bireysel olarak hediye aldıkları durumlar olsa da genellikle ortak hediye almayı tercih ettikleri görülmüştür. Ortak hediye alımında da çoğunlukla sınıf temsilcisinin süreci örgütlediği ancak son zamanlarda WhatsApp uygulamasının daha yaygın duruma geldiği ortaya konmuştur. Anahtar sözcükler: Hediye, hediye verme, öğretmenler günü.
Six experiments (N = 2,350) uncover a prevalent giver‐recipient preference discrepancy: gift‐givers prefer giving material gifts (vs. experiential gifts) more than gift‐recipients prefer to receive them. The experiments reveal congruent evidence that a mnemonic gifting strategy underlies this preference discrepancy. Givers are more likely than recipients to consider the memory consequences of gift options, as givers intuitively use material gifts as interpersonal mnemonic devices to facilitate the recipient’s retrieval of giver‐related memories. As such, this preference discrepancy occurs in various stages of developing relationships but is mitigated in very close relationships. In addition, two theoretical moderators are identified: the preference discrepancy disappears when the gift would be associated with an unpleasant occasion (instead of a pleasant one), and when the giver and recipient expect an incidental increase in future interactions. This research reveals an interpersonal memory‐management motive that underlies the miscalibrated gift choices, and bridges prior findings on material and experiential gifts. These findings also offer insights for consumers and marketers to mitigate miscalibrated choices and their perverse economic and relationship consequences.
Young children anticipate that others act rationally in light of their beliefs and desires, and environmental constraints. However, little is known about whether children anticipate others’ irrational choices. We investigated young children's ability to predict that sunk costs can lead to irrational choices. Across four experiments, 5- to 6-year-olds (total N = 185) and adults (total N = 117) judged which of two identical objects an agent would keep, one obtained at a high cost or one obtained at a low cost. In Experiment 1, adults predicted that the agent would choose the high-cost object over the low-cost one, whereas children responded at chance. Experiment 2 replicated these findings in children, but also included another condition which showed they were sensitive to future costs. They predicted that an agent would be more likely to seek out a low-cost item than a high-cost item. Experiments 3 and 4 then found that children do not anticipate the sunk cost bias in first person scenarios, or in interpersonal sunk cost scenarios, where costs are sunk by others. Taken together, our findings suggest that young children may struggle to understand and predict irrational behavior. The findings also reveal an asymmetry between how they consider sunk costs and future costs in understanding actions. We propose that this asymmetry might arise because children do not consider sunk costs as wasted.
Schenken ist ein allgegenwärtiges Phänomen und ein bedeutender Wirtschaftsfaktor. Allein das Weihnachtsfest als wichtigster Konsumanlass für Geschenke beschert dem Einzelhandel in Deutschenland einen Milliardenumsatz. Dazu kommen Geschenke zu verschiedenen traditionellen Gelegenheiten wie Geburtstag und Hochzeit, Vater- und Muttertag sowie kommerziell erfundenen Geschenkanlässen wie dem Valentinstag. Doch Schenken ist nicht nur ökonomisch, sondern auch psychologisch von außerordentlicher Bedeutung. Denn die uns das ganze Jahr und lebenslang begleitenden Schenkprozesse des Gebens und Nehmens haben ambivalenten Charakter. Einerseits sind sie freiwillige Akte, die starke positive Emotionen wie Freude und Dankbarkeit auslösen. Andererseits gilt für sie eine Fülle von Normen, die wegen ihres verpflichtenden Charakters Unsicherheit und Frust verursachen und bei Regelverletzung starke negative Gefühle wie Enttäuschung und Ärger.
Der Preis eines Geschenkes ist nicht nur eine objektive Größe, sondern hat auch Symbolgehalt. Ein als zu billig wahrgenommenes Geschenk kann vom Empfänger als Ausdruck geringer Wertschätzung interpretiert werden. Dementsprechend gehen Geber in der Regel davon aus, dass mit steigendem Preis eines Geschenks auch Zufriedenheit und Dankbarkeit des Empfängers zunehmen, da sie die Ausgabe als Signal für die Nähe in der Beziehung ansehen. Dies ist aber nur teilweise der Fall. Insbesondere wenn der Preis vom Empfänger als zu hoch empfunden wird, kann das teure Geschenk ambivalente bis negative Gefühle und psychischen Widerstand auslösen.
Gift purchasing is an important factor driving the retail industry around the world, and yet, many gift selections do not match recipient preferences. Three studies examine how consumers from different cultures select gifts for multiple recipients and when gifts deviate from recipients’ preferences. Both U.S. and Chinese consumers who are shopping for multiple recipients tend to pass up recipients’ preferred gifts in favor of getting distinct gifts for each recipient, and Chinese givers are more likely than U.S. givers to choose gifts that deviate from recipients’ preferences overall. The criteria that consumers use to decide whose preferences to prioritize differ across cultures. U.S. givers prioritize recipients they like better, but Chinese givers prioritize better-liked recipients less consistently. Chinese prioritize higher-status recipients, but U.S. givers do not. We further show that these national cultural differences in prioritizing higher-status recipients are paralleled by differences in power distance belief.
When a gift is given from a giver to a recipient, there is often an expectation that the recipient will reciprocate, for example, during the winter holidays. However, recipients do not always have gifts to return to their givers for such “reciprocatory occasions.” They might be unaware beforehand, for instance, that the giver will be giving them one. This research examines whether givers accurately assess how uncomfortable recipients feel when they fail to reciprocate a giver’s gift for a reciprocatory occasion. Several studies demonstrate that givers severely underestimate how uncomfortable recipients feel in such situations. This occurs in part because givers feel less strongly than recipients that the actions of the two parties imply an imbalance in appreciation. Moreover, in part because of this forecasting error, givers give gifts more often than recipients prefer when it is known before a reciprocatory occasion that a recipient would be unable to reciprocate.
Most gifts are occasion‐based as opposed to non‐occasion‐based. That is, most gifts are given in the presence of a special occasion, rather than in the absence of one. Across a series of scenario‐based studies, the present research demonstrates that, despite occasion‐based gifts being much more common, recipients anticipate that their happiness levels will be quite high when receiving non‐occasion‐based gifts, varying little with gift quality. In contrast, they anticipate that their happiness levels will not always be high when receiving occasion‐based gifts, varying greatly with gift quality. These diverging outcomes arise because the caliber of gift that is required to signal care and thus meet a recipient’s expectation is much lower for non‐occasion‐based gifts than for occasion‐based ones. Critically, givers misforecast recipients’ anticipated positive reactions to non‐occasion‐based gifts, helping to explain why these gifts are, unfortunately, rather rare.
Heirlooms are often created out of objects laden with sentimental value. This research asks whether specific subtypes of sentimental value are stronger catalysts for heirloom creation than others. We find that objects associated with achievements are perceived to be more suitable as heirlooms than those associated with enjoyment, even when controlling for the overall positivity of the association. Process evidence suggests this happens because heirloom creators (i.e., givers) have a primary motive to inspire their offspring to strive for accomplishments in their own right. In this regard, such heirlooms appear to be less about creators ensuring their personal achievement legacies are never forgotten, but more about creators leveraging their achievements to motivate the creation of larger, collective legacies by their families by those in following generations. Such findings have implications for both firms wishing to extend the life of the objects they produce and heirloom recipients who may stronger connect with the underlying intentions of the original possessing ancestors.
This dyadic diary study explored how romantic partners benefit from prosocial spending within their relationships. For each of 21 days, couple members indicated whether they spent money on their partner and, if yes, reported the amount of money spent and the type(s) of purchase involved. Participants also completed daily measures of perceived partner responsiveness, and personal and relational well-being. Actor-partner interdependence model analyses showed that (a) the actor’s daily personal and relational well-being were associated with both the actor’s and the partner’s prosocial spending; (b) the actor’s perception of partner’s responsiveness mediated the effect of the partner’s prosocial spending on the actor’s well-being; and (c) experiential purchase (viz., food and other experiences) was associated with both parties’ relational well-being, but material purchase (viz., necessities) was not. Additional analyses suggested that (d) individual differences in prosocial concerns (viz., socioeconomic status and communal motivation) were associated with prosocial spending on one’s partner. (150 words)
Gift-recipients typically receive multiple gifts in the same sitting, yet little is known about the impact of other gifts on givers’ and recipients’ evaluations of any one gift. Across 12 studies, we demonstrate that givers overestimate how much a recipient’s liking of their (i.e., the giver’s) gift [increases/decreases] when it compares [favorably/unfavorably] to other gifts. This appears to be driven by givers not appreciating that, for recipients, it is the thought that counts. However, this is not due to the roles givers and recipients assume; rather, it is driven by a self-other asymmetry, wherein all people involved focus on thoughtfulness but incorrectly believe others focus on relative gift value. As a result of this misconception, when givers know beforehand that others will be giving gifts that compare favorably to their own, they are more likely to spend additional money upgrading their gifts or even to skip the gift-giving occasion altogether.
Purpose
In social networking services gift giving, the decision to send a gift is often initiated by spontaneous news about others, who may have recently experienced fortune or misfortune. The purpose of this paper is to show that the valence of the other’s event can affect the empathy experienced by the giver and that the level of empathy affects gift selection behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Study 1 investigated the relationship between empathy and valence of other’s event and the underlying mechanism of changes in self-esteem. Study 2 explored how different levels of empathies lead to different gift selection behavior. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 using a different measurement approach.
Findings
Across the three studies, findings consistently suggest that the empathy arising from unexpected news of the others’ fortune was lower compared to that of the others’ misfortune because of threats to self-esteem. In addition, greater empathy prompted gift givers to spend more time and effort in gift selection.
Practical implications
Understanding how valence of event experienced by others might motivate givers to engage in selecting a gift online can help retailers increase predictive insights for recommendations.
Originality/value
While past research focused on ritual gift giving, this research examined spontaneous gift giving. The study is also unique in that the empathy gap between the giver and the receiver is a result of the changes in the psychological state of the giver.
Much of the time when a gift giver is selecting a gift, the recipient is someone whom the giver has given a gift to previously. The present work explores how givers’ decision-making and recipients’ desires are influenced by prior gifts given from giver to recipient; in particular, this research examines whether givers and recipients agree when it comes to the decision of whether to repeat a gift that the giver previously gave to the recipient (a “repeat” gift), or opt for a different gift that the giver is yet to give to the recipient (a “novel” gift). Nine studies demonstrate that givers do not give repeat gifts nearly as often as recipients prefer because givers perceive the act of giving a repeat gift to be less thoughtful and more boring than do recipients. Critically, givers avoid repeat gifts even when they are thought to be better matches with recipients’ preferences.
Unlike prior research that treats social‐desirability bias (SDB) as measure contamination, the present research asserts that significant associations between measures of SDB and value self‐reports are evidence of measure validity. The degree to which value self‐reports are influenced by SDB also reflects the relative importance of values within a culture. Values that are most important have the greatest self‐presentational implications and therefore should be most affected by SDB. Moreover, differences between raw and SDB‐corrected value self‐reports indicate the extent to which values are personal (i.e., private) or public in nature. The research is based on two national samples of American adults 18 years of age and older. Implications for research on values are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Students with high reciprocation wariness, a general fear of exploitation in interpersonal relationships, showed (1) a markedly reduced positive response to cooperative communication in a Prisoner's Dilemma bargaining task, (2) a greater negative response to uncooperative communication, and (3) an increased positive response to the prospect of long-term interaction. Friends and roommates of high-wary students evaluated them as unsympathetic, inconsiderate, and manipulative. Students who were supervised by high-wary dormitory resident assistants evaluated them as unapproachable, hesitant to develop close relationships, and unresponsive to student needs. Wariness was found to be unrelated to social goal orientation and Machiavellianism. Reciprocation wariness appears to inhibit the establishment and strengthening of interpersonal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In a study with a total of 180 male college students in the US, Japan, and Sweden, Ss received monetary aid from another member of an experimental group. The obligation attached to the aid was varied along with the Ss' perception of the donor's resources. The effects of the aid on Ss' attraction for the donor, desire for coalition, and repayment were assessed. In general, Ss were more attracted to a donor who obliged them to return the resources than to a donor who asked for nothing in return or for interest. Greater attraction was also expressed for a poor as opposed to a wealthy donor. Desires for coalition were unrelated to attraction for the donor; Ss preferred to join with the wealthy rather than the poor donor. However, more monetary resources were returned to the poor as opposed to the wealthy donor. The same general pattern of findings emerged in the US, Japan, and Sweden. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Unlike prior research that treats social-desirability bias (SDB) as measure contamination, the present research asserts that significant associations between measures of SDB and value self-reports are evidence of measure validity. The degree to which value self-reports are influenced by SDB also reflects the relative importance of values within a culture. Values that are most important have the greatest self-presentational implications and therefore should be most affected by SDB. Moreover, differences between raw and SDB-corrected value self-reports indicate the extent to which values are personal (i.e., private) or public in nature. The research is based on two national samples of American adults 18 years of age and older. Implications for research on values are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Gift-giving has often puzzled economists, especially because efficient gifts-like cash or giving exactly what a person asks for-seem crass or inappropriate. It is shown in a formal game-theoretic model that gifts serve as "signals" of a person's intentions about future investment in a relationship, and inefficient gifts can be better signals. Other explanations for the inefficiency of gift giving are advanced, and some stylized facts about gift-giving practices are described (many of which are consistent with the signaling view of gifts).
Sherry (1983) defines reformulation as the final stage of gift exchange, during which a newly presented gift can impact the relationship between giver and recipient. To date no one has examined exactly how gifts can affect relationships or what aspects of gift exchange contribute to realignment of the giver/recipient relationship. Using depth interviews and critical-incident surveys, our study explores how the recipient's perceptions of the existing relationship, the gift, the ritual context, and his or her emotional reactions converge to affect relationship realignment. We identify six relational effects of gift-receipt experiences. Further, we examine gift-receipt experiences that have a consistent impact in the short and long term, and those where the meanings and relational effects appear to change over time. Implications for future research are also discussed. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.
Self-regulation is a complex process that involves consumers’ persistence, strength, motivation, and commitment in order to be able to override short-term impulses. In order to be able to pursue their long-term goals, consumers typically need to forgo immediate pleasurable experiences that are detrimental to reach their overarching goals. Although this sometimes involves resisting to simple and small temptations, it is not always easy, since the lure of momentary temptations is pervasive. In addition, consumers’ beliefs play an important role determining strategies and behaviors that consumers consider acceptable to engage in, affecting how they act and plan actions to attain their goals. This dissertation investigates adequacy of some beliefs typically shared by consumers about the appropriate behaviors to exert self-regulation, analyzing to what extent these indeed contribute to the enhancement of consumers’ ability to exert self-regulation.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.
How do people react to those who have helped them? The authors propose that a recipient's evaluation of a helper's intentions and the recipient's own attitudes about future interactions with the helper depend partly on the recipient's perceptions of how the helper decided to assist: on the basis of affect, of role, or of cost-benefit calculation. When a recipient perceives that the decision was based on affect (i.e., positive feelings about him or her), he or she will be more inclined toward future interaction and reciprocation than if he or she perceives the decision as based on role or cost-benefit calculation. It is proposed that these "decision modes" signal the helper's underlying attitudes about the recipient, which in turn, clarify their relationship. A boundary is also identified: The negative impact of apparent cost-benefit thinking is greatest when the amount of help provided is small. Predictions are confirmed in four studies of actual and experimentally manipulated helping episodes.
The authors propose that people adopt others' perspectives by serially adjusting from their own. As predicted, estimates of others' perceptions were consistent with one's own but differed in a manner consistent with serial adjustment (Study 1). Participants were slower to indicate that another's perception would be different from--rather than similar to--their own (Study 2). Egocentric biases increased under time pressure (Study 2) and decreased with accuracy incentives (Study 3). Egocentric biases also increased when participants were more inclined to accept plausible values encountered early in the adjustment process than when inclined to reject them (Study 4). Finally, adjustments tend to be insufficient, in part, because people stop adjusting once a plausible estimate is reached (Study 5).
This paper considers how people react to those who have helped them. We propose that a recipient's evaluation of a helper's intentions and the recipient's own attitudes about future interactions with the helper depend partly on the way in which the helper appears to have decided to assist: on the basis of positive affect, of organizational role, or of cost-benefit calculation. When a recipient perceives that a helping decision was based on affect (i.e., positive feelings about the recipient), she will be more inclined toward future interaction and reciprocation with the helper than if she perceives the decision as having been based on role or cost-benefit considerations. We propose that these "decision modes" signal the helper's underlying attitudes about the recipient, which, in turn, clarify the relationship with the helper. We also examine a boundary condition: modes have their greatest impact when the amount of help provided is small. We confirmed our predictions in four studies of actual and experimentally-manipulated helping episodes. Our results challenge models of reciprocation that focus predominantly on benefit magnitude or felt gratitude.
The process of exchange is almost continual in human interactions, and appears to have characteristics peculiar to itself, and to generate affect, motivation, and behavior that cannot be predicted unless exchange processes are understood. This chapter describes two major concepts relating to the perception of justice and injustice; the concept of relative deprivation and the complementary concept of relative gratification. All dissatisfaction and low morale are related to a person's suffering injustice in social exchanges. However, a significant portion of cases can be usefully explained by invoking injustice as an explanatory concept. In the theory of inequity, both the antecedents and consequences of perceived injustice have been stated in terms that permit quite specific predictions to be made about the behavior of persons entering social exchanges. Relative deprivation and distributive justice, as theoretical concepts, specify some of the conditions that arouse perceptions of injustice and complementarily, the conditions that lead men to feel that their relations with others are just. The need for much additional research notwithstanding, the theoretical analyses that have been made of injustice in social exchanges should result not only in a better general understanding of the phenomenon, but should lead to a degree of social control not previously possible. The experience of injustice need not be an accepted fact of life.
Norm theory (Kahneman & Miller, 1986) identifies factors that determine the ease with which alternatives to reality can be imagined or constructed. One assumption of norm theory is that the greater the availability of imagined alternatives to an event, the stronger will be the affective reaction elicited by the event. The present two experiments explore this assumption in the context of observers' reactions to victims. It was predicted that negative outcomes that strongly evoked positive alternatives would elicit more sympathy from observers than negative outcomes that weakly evoked positive alternatives. The ease of counterfactual thought was manipulated in the first experiment by the spatial distance between the negative outcome and a positive alternative, and in the second experiment by the habitualness of the actions that precipitated the victimization. Consistent with norm theory, subjects recommended more compensation for victims of fates for which a positive alternative was highly available. Implications of the results for various types of reactions to victims are discussed.
The ritual Christmas gift giving in Middletown involves virtually the entire population and is governed by elaborate unwritten rules that are remarkably well enforced without obvious means of enforcement. Most gifts are scaled to the formal relationship between giver and receiver. It is proposed that ritualized gift giving in this society, as in others, is a way of reinforcing relationships that are highly valued but insecure.
This study investigated 3 broad classes of individual-differences variables (job-search motives, competencies, and constraints) as predictors of job-search intensity among 292 unemployed job seekers. Also assessed was the relationship between job-search intensity and reemployment success in a longitudinal context. Results show significant relationships between the predictors employment commitment, financial hardship, job-search self-efficacy, and motivation control and the outcome job-search intensity. Support was not found for a relationship between perceived job-search constraints and job-search intensity. Motivation control was highlighted as the only lagged predictor of job-search intensity over time for those who were continuously unemployed. Job-search intensity predicted Time 2 reemployment status for the sample as a whole, but not reemployment quality for those who found jobs over the study's duration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Bronislaw Malinowski’s pathbreaking Argonauts of the Western Pacific is at once a detailed account of exchange in the Melanesian islands and a manifesto of a modernist anthropology. Malinowski argued that the goal of which the ethnographer should never lose sight is ‘to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.’ Through vivid evocations of Kula life, including the building and launching of canoes, fishing expeditions and the role of myth and magic amongst the Kula people, Malinowski brilliantly describes an inter-island system of exchange-from gifts from father to son to swapping fish for yams-around which an entire community revolves. A classic of anthropology that did much to establish the primacy of painstaking fieldwork over the earlier anecdotal reports of travel writers, journalists and missionaries, it is a compelling insight into a world now largely lost from view. With a new foreword by Adam Kuper.
Outliers versus Inuential CasesTypical Approaches to Dealing with OutliersApproaches to Detecting Outliers and InFluential CasesCoping with Outliers and Influential CasesConclusion
NoteReferences
A series of studies tested whether people underestimate the likelihood that others will comply with their direct requests for help. In the first 3 studies, people underestimated by as much as 50% the likelihood that others would agree to a direct request for help, across a range of requests occurring in both experimental and natural field settings. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that experimentally manipulating a person’s perspective (as help seeker or potential helper) could elicit this underestimation effect. Finally, in Study 6, the authors explored the source of the bias, finding that help seekers were less willing than potential helpers were to appreciate the social costs of refusing a direct request for help (the costs of saying “no”), attending instead to the instrumental costs of helping (the costs of saying “yes”).
Five studies examined the hypothesis that people overestimate the influence of self-interest on attitudes and behaviors. The results strongly supported the hypothesis. In Study 1, participants overestimated the impact that financial reward exerted on their peers' willingness to donate blood. In 4 subsequent studies, participants overestimated the impact that group membership had on their peers' attitudes (Studies 2, 3, and 4) and behaviors (Study 5). The tendency to overestimate the impact of self-interest on others was largely unrelated to the impact that it had on participants' own attitudes and behaviors. Implications of the lay person's belief in the power of self-interest are discussed.
The present research examines episodes of favor exchange among peer employees. We posit that favor receivers' and favor givers' commitment to their exchange relationships with one another will be accounted for by different factors. As predicted, in 2 different organizational contexts, receivers' commitment to their relationships with givers was found to be more related to their judgments of the givers' interactional justice when performing the favor, whereas givers' commitment to their relationships with receivers was shown to be more associated with their judgments of the favorability of the outcomes associated with the favor that they performed. The implications of these findings for how givers and receivers can better manage favor exchange, and hence their relationships with each other, are discussed.
When people are asked to choose between gift items, givers and receivers sometimes show different patterns of preferences. The article reports four experimental studies exploring these giver-receiver asymmetries. Whereas givers tend to prefer exclusive, but smaller gift items, receivers appear to prefer less luxurious, and more useful gifts (Experiment 1). Givers prefer gift vouchers to cash, and are concerned about timing, whereas more receivers accept cash gifts, and claim that it does not matter if the gift arrives late (Experiment 2). One interpretation of the results could be that givers conform more strongly to gift conventions (cultural norms for gift exchange). It is further argued that these differences are not due to a perceived difference between self and others (Experiment 3), but rather because of situational differences. When receivers perform separate evaluations of gifts rather than joint evaluations (pairwise comparisons), they tend to change their preference pattern towards a higher rating of exclusive gift items (Experiment 4).
Three laboratory studies and one field study show that people generally hold lay theories which contain anextrinsic incentives bias—people predict that others are more motivated than themselves by extrinsic incentives (job security, pay) and less motivated by intrinsic incentives (learning new things). The extrinsic incentives bias can be separated from a self-serving bias and it provides an empirical counterexample to the traditional actor-observer effect in social psychology (although its theoretical explanation is similar). This kind of bias may hinder organizations from organizing because people who act as principals may use improper lay theories to offer inappropriate deals to agents.
Inequity in social exchange Advances in experimental social psychology
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Adams, S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.). Advances in
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Indian legends of the Northwest Coast
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Boas, F. (1895). Indian legends of the Northwest Coast. Washington, DC: Smithsonian.