Commentary: Why are we still so bad at buying gifts for friends and family?
SINGAPORE: For many people caught upwards in Christmas shopping fever, deciding what gifts to purchase for their friends and family is 1 of the biggest causes of stress during the holiday menstruum. After all, unless you have a existent score to settle, nobody wants to requite a dud gift.
Nonetheless oftentimes, despite the all-time of intentions, gifts fall flat and recipients end up less than satisfied with what they have received. Many people even go so far as to return unwanted gifts to the store, or "re-souvenir" them to others or to charity.
In my work at the National Academy of Singapore Business School, much of my inquiry work focuses on consumer psychology, including how people decide what to purchase and how they make decisions when purchasing gifts for others.
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THE WOW FACTOR
In a recent inquiry study with a colleague at the University of Chicago, we looked at why gift givers often choose gifts that fall short of the marking.
Our results showed that when giving gifts, people tend to choose items they expect will trigger the biggest firsthand emotional reaction from the recipient - for example a wide smile, a squeal of delight, or even a hug for the gift giver.
However, when placed on the other side, as a gift recipient, people adopt and place greater value on gifts which will bring them greater satisfaction over the long term.
We as well establish that whether or not the giver would exist able to see the recipients open their gifts plays a significant role in making gift decisions. Indeed, when givers learnt they would not exist witnessing the recipient's reaction when unwrapping the gift, their preference for gifts with a higher "wow" gene was significantly reduced.
The reason for this comes downward to how humans use non-verbal displays to communicate our emotions – for example, through facial expressions or gestures – and how we interpret and value those displays in others.
Such skills develop from an early on age. As nosotros abound we internalise these emotional responses, using them as a guide for anticipating how others will react and make our decisions appropriately.
Several psychological studies, for case, have found that people proactively simulate or forecast how their decisions would touch other people's emotional reactions and correspondingly conform their behaviour.
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WE SEEK OUT OUR OWN Pleasance WHEN GIVING GIFTS
So how does this apply in the process of choosing and giving a gift?
For our study we conducted a series of experiments, each involving effectually 100 participants or more and beyond a broad age range, centred on various gift-giving scenarios such as Christmas, a wedding shower and Valentine's 24-hour interval.
From our experiments we found consistent prove that gift givers seek and derive pleasance from the receiver'south anticipated brandish of emotion when the gift is opened – a process we dubbed "the grinning-seeking hypothesis".
This means that souvenir givers tend to opt for the gift they expect will trigger the near enthusiastic emotional response from the recipient, even when they know of some other option at similar cost that would actually give the recipient greater long term satisfaction.
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Another significant factor at play is that a person's firsthand emotional reaction to a gift does non e'er reflect their deeper satisfaction from receiving information technology.
Because the receiver's assessment of satisfaction with a souvenir is a more than deliberative internal process that sometimes comport out only when they use the gift later on, it tends non to manifest itself visually or immediately, meaning in that location are fewer cues for gift givers to choice up on.
However, because these emotional signals are valued and actively sought by souvenir givers, these tend to sway givers' buy decisions towards particular choices, such every bit gifts with that extra "wow" factor.
WE Wait FOR A RESPONSE
In many situations therefore souvenir recipients tend to reward givers with signals of gratitude that do non represent with the long-term value they derive from the gift.
A case in point is gifts of greenbacks. Many of the participants in our report said that equally recipients they often found that gifts of greenbacks were the most appreciated and satisfying. Withal, because cash gifts tend to elicit merely a depression key emotional response – such as, "thanks, that's very kind" - gift givers try to seek out more than impactful gift options instead.
At times of giving, information technology is often said that it is the idea that counts. Indeed, the phrase is sometimes used as an excuse when a gift is particularly ho-hum or inappropriate – or even, ironically, when very lilliputian thought has been put in at all.
What our study shows is that when choosing gifts, we can be swayed into choices that deliver more on our own needs to be immediately rewarded than on maximising value for the recipient.
In other words, even when we practise put thought into choosing a gift, we can miss the mark by thinking almost the wrong things.
Adelle Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not represent the views and opinions of NUS.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/best-ideas-christmas-presents-gifts-family-friends-what-to-buy-220666
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