We recently wrote about the 6 Best Christmas Gifts in 2018. Those of you who already purchased your gifts may think the more you spend, the more your recipients will enjoy the gift. The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology disagrees with this premise and performed an extensive study. Here are their findings on why money can’t buy love, even at Christmas time.
1. The Overall Study
Three studies were used to find the correlation in gift givers and recipients beliefs about gift price and feelings of appreciation. Those who gave gifts expect a positive correlation between how much they spent and how much the gift is appreciated. This is assumed because a more expensive gift allegedly is more thoughtful. However, recipients of these gifts did not report an extra appreciation for gifts of a higher price. The effect generally occurred regardless of the giver’s role as well as the magnitude of the gift.
2. 1st Study – Engagement Rings
The study examined data from recently engaged couples who had either purchased or been given an engagement ring. The field narrowed to 33 participants (18 men and 15 women) who were told their answers would not be shared with their partner. While engaged men expected their fiancées would enjoy a more expensive engagement ring, the women showed the same appreciation for expensive rings as inexpensive ones.
3. 2nd Study – Birthday Gifts
An appropriate selection for this time of year. Participants in the study were asked to describe a gift they had either given or received for their own or someone else’s birthday. They described a wide variety of gifts such as t-shirts, wine, albums, jewelry, books, and home decorations. As part of the study, they had to answer “to what extent do you think the recipient appreciated this gift?” and ‘‘to what extent did you appreciate this gift?” There was no significant effect of price on the appreciation of the gift. There was a significant interaction between gift price and role.
4. 3rd Study – Gift Giving Vignette
Participants were taken from an online pool of adults by a university research lab. They included 197 total adults, 68 men, 127 women, with 2 who did not report their gender. Participants were randomly assigned to either give or receive a CD (small gift) or an iPod (large gift). They were then asked to feel how they would feel had they received the gift as a high school graduation present. These were the results:
- On a scale of 1 to 7 – 7 being the most appreciative – givers thought recipients would appreciate the CD at 5.5.
- Givers of iPod believed recipients would appreciate the gift at 6.25.
- In actuality, recipients of the CD appreciated it at a rate of approximately 6.10.
- Recipients of the iPod appreciated it at a rate of approximately 6.00.
You may read the study in its entirety by clicking here.
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