U of Ideas of General Interest -- December 1998
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Sciences Editor
(217) 333-2177; [email protected]
PSYCHOLOGY OF GIFT-GIVING
Relative strength of a relationship critical to impact a gift may have
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- You think you're just giving a gift, right? A simple act, no big deal. Researchers have news for you: It is a big deal. That gift could make or break your relationship with the recipient -- depending on the quality of the relationship at the time the gift is offered.
In the realm of gift-giving, "It's not the thought that counts. It's the relationship," says Cele Otnes, a professor of advertising at the University of Illinois.
According to Otnes, a co-author of the first study of recipients' views on how gifts affect relationships, "Even the most inappropriate gift -- tampons or Maxi Pads for Christmas, for example, a gift one of our study participants actually received every year -- can't hurt a relationship, if the relationship is strong and the recipient perceives the giver's intentions to be good. On the other hand, if the relationship is weak, even the best gift can't save it."
Combining face-to-face in-depth interviews with a group of 16 people, and reports on gift-giving experiences from another 125 people, the researchers found that gifts could impact the recipient's view of a relationship in one of six ways. They could strengthen the relationship, affirm a positive relationship, have negligible effect, confirm a negative relationship, weaken or sever ties. Researchers also found that the meaning of a gift could change over the course of a relationship -- with some gifts leading to a more positive -- or a more negative -- "relational effect."
Of the nearly 150 gift experiences the study participants recalled, 58 percent were emotionally negative.
The results of the study will appear in the March 1999 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research in an article titled "Gift Receipt and the Reformulation of Interpersonal Relationships." Other co-authors are Julie Ruth of the University of Washington and Frederic Brunel of Boston University.
The authors also wanted to know why certain gifts have the effect they do on relationships. They found, on the most positive end, that some gifts are "epiphanies," which lead the recipient to realize that the giver shares his or her desire to elevate the relationship to a higher plane. On the opposite extreme are gifts that control -- for example, a check with a card that says, "Call me the minute you get this!" -- which "certainly can confirm the impression that a giver is being manipulative."
Regarding ritual giving on "calendar occasions," Otnes observed that "All of the ritual trappings in the world can't save a gift from harming the relationship, if that's what the recipient perceives it's doing." However, you don't need any ritual trappings to strengthen a relationship by means of a gift.
What seems to go over especially well, Otnes said, is when people create their own rituals, "presenting items with special, personal significance and with their own litanies -- for example, 'This gum ball ring symbolizes our bond forever.' "
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