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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: It is the holidays, and I imagine a lot of

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Speaker 2: you out there are in the midst of your gift

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Speaker 2: acquisition phase. You are, maybe you're towards the end of it.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you think you have everything lined up. Today's episode

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Speaker 2: is to help you second guess all of those choices

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Speaker 2: and make you wonder, Hey, am I really that good

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Speaker 2: of a gift giver after all?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we were talking before we came on about ways

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Speaker 3: to make this not just end up leaving everyone feeling

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Speaker 3: guilty and anxious about the gifts that already gotten for people.

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Speaker 3: I want to emphasize that gift giving, while there are

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Speaker 3: a lot of ways for it to go wrong, it's

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Speaker 3: mostly very low stakes. We've all given less than ideals,

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Speaker 3: We've always we've all received less than ideal gifts. So

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Speaker 3: while I think there's a lot to learn from looking

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Speaker 3: at the ways gift giving can go wrong, it's also

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Speaker 3: not something to stress out about too much. You know,

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Speaker 3: as the saying goes, it's the thought that counts at

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Speaker 3: least in some ways.

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Speaker 2: Well, I always told myself that is the thought that counts.

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Speaker 2: I have some questions about that logic. We may get into.

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Speaker 2: But because you do, you get into some of the

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Speaker 2: papers that have been written about gift giving, and you

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Speaker 2: do get the sense that no gift giving is a

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Speaker 2: battlefield as well. It is a contest of wills, and

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Speaker 2: the stakes could not be any higher. What is on

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Speaker 2: the line is like the definition of a relationship. What

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Speaker 2: if the gift that I give is not equal to

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Speaker 2: that which I receive in one way or another, you know,

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Speaker 2: in price, appropriateness, thoughtfulness, practicality, there's so many different qualifiers

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Speaker 2: that you can employ here. Yeah, every holiday sea And

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Speaker 2: I'm reminded of the line from TV's thirty Rock where

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Speaker 2: Jack Donaghy's assistant Jonathan tells Les Lemon he's the best

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Speaker 2: gift giver in the world. I tried once. I bought

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Speaker 2: him a ninety five dollars bottle of olive oil. In return,

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Speaker 2: he got my sister out of in North Korean jail.

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Speaker 3: That's about right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that sums up the stress that you can feel

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Speaker 2: going especially going into a first time gift exchange. You know,

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Speaker 2: once you've done a few holidays in a row, you

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Speaker 2: probably know the deal and it's a lot more late back.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it can feel like this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, I want to stress that there are a lot

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Speaker 2: of studies about gift giving, and much has been said

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Speaker 2: about the practice throughout human history, and one way or another, Aristotle, Confucius,

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Speaker 2: many others have reflected on the act of giving. Though

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Speaker 2: you'll quickly find that not every nugget of human wisdom

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Speaker 2: concerning gifts and giving is easily applied to ritualized holiday

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Speaker 2: gift giving, especially in our modern age.

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Speaker 3: Mm. Yeah, that's right. One of the papers I was

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Speaker 3: looking at, though, made an interesting claim, which is that

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Speaker 3: they said that gift giving is culturally universal. I really

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Speaker 3: briefly went looking to see if I could find a

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Speaker 3: counter example of like a culture that does not exchange gifts,

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Speaker 3: and you know, I didn't do a dissertation or anything,

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Speaker 3: but I could not find an example. It does seem

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Speaker 3: that basically everyone everywhere exchanges gifts in some form.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, basically it's not even unique to human beings.

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Speaker 2: This is not really the podcast episode where we're going

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Speaker 2: to go into animals giving gifts, but there are numerous

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Speaker 2: examples we could turn to and have discussed in the

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Speaker 2: show before. Yeah, distinct from human gift giving, but still

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Speaker 2: there is this, there is the spirit of it there,

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Speaker 2: the holiday spirit is present amid the spiders and the

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Speaker 2: dogs and so forth. M Yeah, Now, I want to

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Speaker 2: stress that we're largely going to be considering the idea

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Speaker 2: of gifts given in good faith here sow not just

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Speaker 2: straight no straight up nasty gifts, gifts of sabotage and

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Speaker 2: so forth, but gifts that are given in more or

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Speaker 2: less the correct spirit of gift giving.

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Speaker 3: This is what most of the studies on gift giving

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Speaker 3: look into, especially the ones that get into the errors

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Speaker 3: in gift giving. There are some distinctions these studies make

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Speaker 3: between genuinely altruistic motivations for gift giving and then self

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Speaker 3: or ego focused motivations for gift giving. But I think

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Speaker 3: even the gifts that have some kind of selfish motivation

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Speaker 3: behind them, you could still say are mostly given in

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Speaker 3: good faith. You're still trying to give a nice gift

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Speaker 3: even when there's something for you in the exchange. But

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Speaker 3: this would be ruling out the kinds of gifts that

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Speaker 3: are like purely malicious or pranks or something I remember.

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Speaker 3: I used to think about how funny it would be

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Speaker 3: to show up to Christmas and give the uncle like

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Speaker 3: a large illegal reptile. They did not ask for unwanted pets.

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Speaker 3: That's like the classic malicious gift.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's also, as we'll get into, it's

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Speaker 2: also a classic example of what the giver may think

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Speaker 2: of as a great gift, but they're just not thinking

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Speaker 2: about the practicality of the thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So obviously, this still leads plenty of room for disconnect

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Speaker 2: between two gift exchangers, between the giver and the receiver

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Speaker 2: intentions on one side, reception on the other, with both

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Speaker 2: sides going into the scenario with separate and potentially unaligned

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Speaker 2: predictions of how the gift will be received based on

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Speaker 2: simulated simulations formulated via our theory of mind. Because, as

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Speaker 2: we've covered on the show before, every relationship in our

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Speaker 2: life is predicated on a simulation in our own mind

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Speaker 2: of what the other's mind state consists of, and it

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Speaker 2: might be reasonably accurate. You know that our model reasonably

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Speaker 2: approximates the other person's mindset, at least insofar as we

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Speaker 2: interact with it. It might be effective for this given relationship,

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Speaker 2: but it could also be inaccurate in key ways and

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Speaker 2: could be detrimental to the relationship in the shorter long

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Speaker 2: term well.

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Speaker 3: And in fact, I would say a lot of times

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Speaker 3: when gift giving fails, it may come down to the

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Speaker 3: recipient of the gift detecting that the gift givers mental

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Speaker 3: model of them is not accurate. That makes sense, like

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Speaker 3: you know, when a gift is given that the recipient

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Speaker 3: thinks you should have known that this is not what

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Speaker 3: I would have wanted. What they're upset about is not

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Speaker 3: just the gift. They're upset about being misunderstood or being

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Speaker 3: modeled incorrectly.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I would agree, and we'll get into some

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Speaker 2: more nuanced examples of this as we proceed. Now. I

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Speaker 2: do want to point out that some of the sources

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Speaker 2: I was looking at painted of what sounded like maybe

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Speaker 2: an academically pretty bleak picture of gift giving. There was

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Speaker 2: a nineteen ninety three paper I looked at titled The

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Speaker 2: Dark Side of the Gift, published in the Journal of

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Speaker 2: Business Research by and was authored by Sherry McGrath and Levy,

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Speaker 2: and it really floored me with a few of these statements.

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Speaker 2: So I want to read a couple of these quotes,

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Speaker 2: and I do apologize that by not actually going into

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Speaker 2: their study, these are kind of out of context. So

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Speaker 2: give the authors in the original paper the benefit of

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Speaker 2: a doubt here, But I shall read gift giving and

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Speaker 2: receiving in gender high levels of anxiety among consumers. Gifts

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Speaker 2: create and exacerbate interpersonal conflict. They were frequently used as weapons,

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Speaker 2: and consumers' responses to them are carefully canalyzed.

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Speaker 3: Now, I was not able to understand what canalyzed means

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Speaker 3: in this context. I almost wondered if it was a

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Speaker 3: typo by the authors. But canalyzed or canalyzed that is

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Speaker 3: a word I definitely agree with the first two sentences there. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: it's a huge amount of anxiety about gift giving. I

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Speaker 3: feel it myself. I love to give a good gift,

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Speaker 3: That's one of my favorite things to do. But it

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Speaker 3: so rarely happens that I am able to figure out

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Speaker 3: what that perfect gift is for somebody that I don't know.

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Speaker 3: More often, I'm just like really worried and anxious that

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Speaker 3: the gifts I'm getting people are not good enough or

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Speaker 3: not really what they want.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean there's a whole discussion that we

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Speaker 2: had there about the idea of a perfect gift, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: perfect is always the enemy of done, and you do

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Speaker 2: want to get done. You want to be finished with

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Speaker 2: your holiday shopping at some point, so we probably shouldn't

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Speaker 2: put that much pressure on ourselves.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, at the same time that I'm trying to

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Speaker 3: put your fears at rest. You know, there's a hypocrisy here,

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Speaker 3: because I still feel the clinch too, Like, oh no,

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Speaker 3: is this am I getting the wrong thing? Is this

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Speaker 3: actually going to offend somebody?

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Speaker 2: Well, going back to the dark side of the gift

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Speaker 2: for just a second, what could be possibly formed into

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Speaker 2: a canal here? I think maybe they're referring to like

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Speaker 2: the channeling of the resulting negativity, because their argument here,

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Speaker 2: if I'm understanding correctly, and I could be getting it

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Speaker 2: completely wrong, is that the conflict that is exacerbated by

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Speaker 2: the gift giving results in negativity that then has to

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Speaker 2: be man aged by both the giver and the recipient.

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Speaker 2: But quote consumers, victims of sentiment and symbolism are found

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Speaker 2: to be entrapped in rituals and enjoyed by cultural ideology

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Speaker 2: from expressing discontent in most ways except fantasy. So It

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Speaker 2: really brings the mind to Brian this idea that gift

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Speaker 2: giving just causes like this deep dark growth in the

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Speaker 2: soul that we just have to like swallow down into

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Speaker 2: the depths of our beings where it just stagnates and corrupts. Again,

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Speaker 2: I'm probably blowing it out of proportion here.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I mean the hit. There is a whole other

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Speaker 3: question of sometimes when like economists write about gift giving,

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Speaker 3: there is a negativity in the way they talk about

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Speaker 3: it too, because because there are there is a traditional

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Speaker 3: view in economics that in a lot of ways gift giving,

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Speaker 3: especially giving of non cash gifts, like in kind gifts,

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Speaker 3: that that results in economic inefficiency and way. So the

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Speaker 3: idea is, you know, you give somebody something you bought

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Speaker 3: for them that you know that they didn't buy themselves.

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Speaker 3: That creates waste because people end up getting a lot

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Speaker 3: of gifts that they do not want, or maybe it's

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Speaker 3: a gift that they kind of want, but it's not

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Speaker 3: exactly what they would have selected for themselves if they

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Speaker 3: were going to spend the same amount of money. But

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Speaker 3: fortunately I was reading about this and economists have sort

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Speaker 3: of come back on this a bit. They don't even

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Speaker 3: think that gift giving is purely wasteful or inefficient in

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Speaker 3: economic terms. Clearly, there's a lot of social benefits social

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Speaker 3: value added from gift giving, so that's not really in question.

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Speaker 3: But in terms of just purely economic benefits, there are

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Speaker 3: some views that the gift giving can actually increase that too.

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Speaker 3: For example, if a material good acquires value to someone

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Speaker 3: by virtue of being a gift, so it is now

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Speaker 3: worth more to the recipient than the giver paid for it.

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Speaker 3: And then there are also these interesting studies that find

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Speaker 3: that sometimes gift giving may increase economic value by doing

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Speaker 3: what they call reducing search costs, essentially by providing people

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Speaker 3: with access to goods they find desirable that they would

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Speaker 3: not have known about or would not have been able

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Speaker 3: to acquire efficiently for themselves. And I was trying to

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Speaker 3: think about real life examples of this one that you

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Speaker 3: used to figure into my life all the time when

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Speaker 3: I was traveling a lot for Christmas, would be people

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Speaker 3: would give each other gifts of like local specialties from

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Speaker 3: their hometowns when they get together for Christmas. So there

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Speaker 3: you may actually be adding economic value because it would

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Speaker 3: be economically costly and difficult for somebody to go acquire

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Speaker 3: that local thing themselves.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.

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Speaker 3: But that being said, there still is a lot of

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Speaker 3: economic literature that emphasizes the downsides, the downsides of gift

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Speaker 3: giving in terms of inefficiency and waste in the economy.

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Speaker 3: In fact, one of the papers I was looking at

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Speaker 3: so it started by citing an estimate that consumers in

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Speaker 3: the United States, just in the United States, spend hundreds

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Speaker 3: of billions of dollars on interpersonal gifts each year, and

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Speaker 3: it flagged an article about holiday gift returns. Now, this

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Speaker 3: is an older article, so the numbers might be even

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Speaker 3: more staggering by now. This is from December twenty fifteen,

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Speaker 3: published in CNBC by Tom de Christopher. The article is

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Speaker 3: called your Holiday returns cost retailers billions, and it says

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Speaker 3: that an estimated seventy billion dollars worth of products were

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Speaker 3: expected to be returned to sellers around the twenty fifteen

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Speaker 3: holiday season, according to a logistics and solutions firm called Optro,

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Speaker 3: and it talked about how retailers can recoup some of

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Speaker 3: those costs. They can put items up for resale. Sometimes,

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Speaker 3: depending on what they are, they can for them at

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Speaker 3: a deep discount to liquidators. But a lot of that

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Speaker 3: value is just gone. It's lost, and the article says

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Speaker 3: that in the previous year, Americans returned a total of

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Speaker 3: about two hundred and eighty four billion dollars worth of merchandise.

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Speaker 3: Somewhere between a quarter to half of that value is

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Speaker 3: just lost and cannot be recouped by the seller. Another

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Speaker 3: estimate given in the article was that overall, sellers expect

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Speaker 3: about ten percent of goods to be returned. This obviously

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Speaker 3: varies by product sector and the channel of sale. I've

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Speaker 3: read some stuff saying that the numbers are probably higher

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Speaker 3: now than they were ten years ago, and especially for

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Speaker 3: online sales, or there are a lot of returns, but

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Speaker 3: either way, beyond the yearly average, there is a surge

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Speaker 3: in returns at the end of the year around Christmas time.

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Speaker 3: According to Optro, about a quarter of all returns for

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Speaker 3: the year occur around Christmas. And you can guess that

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Speaker 3: a bunch of this comes from unwanted gifts. People getting

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Speaker 3: a gain. If they don't want they take it back

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Speaker 3: to the store with a gift receipt and get it exchanged. Now,

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Speaker 3: on one hand, it might be hard to get too

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Speaker 3: broken up about, you know, lost profits for retailers. I

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Speaker 3: don't know, do I care if Walmart is losing some

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Speaker 3: losing some profit this year, But obviously a lot of

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Speaker 3: that economic loss is going to get taken out on

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Speaker 3: regular people, on low level employees, and on consumers, like sorry,

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Speaker 3: prices have to go up, no raise this year, et cetera,

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Speaker 3: because we lost profits. But apart from the economic losses,

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Speaker 3: it also creates a huge amount of material waste each year.

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Speaker 3: So like a returned like new high value object like

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Speaker 3: an iPad or something can often be resold for a

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Speaker 3: significant fraction of its original value. But a lot of

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Speaker 3: products that are returned are not worth the cost of

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Speaker 3: putting them through the reverse supply chain, so they just

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Speaker 3: go in the trash. And it's kind of sad to

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Speaker 3: think about.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, So it really seems like, on one hand,

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Speaker 2: we have an economic responsibility to be better gift givers

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Speaker 2: so that you are not certainly so they don't go

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Speaker 2: into trash, but also so they don't they're not just

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Speaker 2: returned and you know, and they go through this life

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Speaker 2: cycle that you've just described. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 2: there it does seem like there are certain types of

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Speaker 2: gifts that would not be purchased if gift givers were

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Speaker 2: more thoughtful and intelligent about what they're doing, like and

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Speaker 2: and and I say that in you know, half serious.

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Speaker 2: I guess on that, especially with kids, there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of plastic garbage that goes out, and that plastic garbage

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Speaker 2: can be pretty joyous in the short term. So I'm

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Speaker 2: not saying it's like a complete loss, but at the

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Speaker 2: end of at the end of the day, sometimes literally

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Speaker 2: the end of Christmas Day, but it certainly at the

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Speaker 2: end the end of the end of the day, it

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Speaker 2: just becomes garbage.

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Speaker 3: It's just loss. I mean, I think I had more

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Speaker 3: of the plastic garbage view before I became a parent,

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Speaker 3: And now my daughter gets so much enjoyment out of

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Speaker 3: playing with little pieces of plastic garbage, like she's in

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Speaker 3: love with somebody of the you know, like a little

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Speaker 3: plastic animal or something. So I don't know, it's hard

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Speaker 3: for me to demonize those things too much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you never know when one will be like,

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Speaker 2: I have plastic garbage right here on my desk. This

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna hold this up for you so you can

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Speaker 2: see in the camera. Jo, I have no idea where

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Speaker 2: this came from. Maybe it's a happy meal toy. I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure it's a mummy. It is the very definition

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Speaker 2: of plastic garbage. I'm not sure where it came from,

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Speaker 2: but for some reason it's treasured, so you never can tell.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's get a bit into the central

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Speaker 2: topic here, errors in gift giving. How things go wrong

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Speaker 2: and where they go wrong. So one of the really

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Speaker 2: the first paper to catch my eye on this topic

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Speaker 2: because we're looking at other holiday possibilities. It was a

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen paper titled why certain gifts are great to

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Speaker 2: give but not to get a Framework for Understanding Errors

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Speaker 2: and Gift Giving by Gallic Givey and Williams, published in

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Speaker 2: the journal Current Directions in Psychological sci.

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Speaker 3: I love that it introduces the phrase errors in gift

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Speaker 3: giving because that's actually it's like a clinical description of

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Speaker 3: exactly the phenomenon they're talking about. So it is, it's precise,

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Speaker 3: it's clear, it's accurate. But it also kind of softens

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Speaker 3: the blow of talking about this we were originally thinking about,

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Speaker 3: you know, maybe we should talk about bad Christmas gifts.

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Speaker 3: But the bad that's such a strong word, and are

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Speaker 3: the gifts really bad? I mean, the truth is that

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Speaker 3: a lot of gifts. People might appreciate the fact that

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Speaker 3: the gift was given while also recognizing that there is

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Speaker 3: some amount of error in the selection or delivery of

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Speaker 3: the gift. Something did not go perfectly right here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, error is the way to go, because

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Speaker 2: you can still air in giving a good gift. And

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Speaker 2: so I just once more, I just want to assure

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Speaker 2: everyone out there, you're doing a great job. Don't worry

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Speaker 2: about this year's holiday gift giving selections. You did good,

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Speaker 2: but maybe take all of this into the next cycle

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Speaker 2: of gifts that you acquire.

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Speaker 3: Everybody but me did a great job. I'm still terrified.

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Speaker 3: Oh and by the way, since you're mentioning the main

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Speaker 3: paper you're drawing from here, I wanted to go ahead

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Speaker 3: and flag another the other main source that I want

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Speaker 3: to draw from in this episode. So this is a

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Speaker 3: different paper which is from twenty twenty three. It has

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Speaker 3: actually two of the same authors as your twenty sixteen article.

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Speaker 3: This one is called an Integrative Review of Gift Giving

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Speaker 3: Research and Consumer Behavior and Marketing, published in the Journal

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Speaker 3: of Consumer Psychology by Julian Givey, Laura Berg, Tina M. Lowry,

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Speaker 3: and Jeff Gallic Julian Gives of West Virginia University, Laura

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Speaker 3: berg Is from the University of Bokum in Germany, Tina

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Speaker 3: Lowry of h GC Paris, and Jeff Gallic of Carnegie

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Speaker 3: Mellon And the goal of this paper is to do

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Speaker 3: a large systematic review of the academic literature on gift gives,

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Speaker 3: drawing on a bunch of different disciplines anthropology and sociology, psychology,

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Speaker 3: and most heavily on business marketing and consumer studies research.

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Speaker 3: Sort of a big roundup of what has been studied

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Speaker 3: and what have people found out when it comes to

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Speaker 3: consumer gifting. Might not come as a surprise that this

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Speaker 3: is a topic of immense interest in the field of

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Speaker 3: business marketing and consumer studies, because again, gift giving is

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Speaker 3: big business. So as you might guess, this paper gets

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Speaker 3: into a bunch of different subject areas, but I wanted

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Speaker 3: to mention a couple of sections relevant to our subject today.

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Speaker 3: One of them is givers' motivations, so it looks into

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Speaker 3: studies on the question why do people give gifts and

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Speaker 3: what leads them to select the gifts they do. Another

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Speaker 3: section of focus is on givers inputs quote that is,

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Speaker 3: whether the thought and money a giver puts into a

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Speaker 3: gift is more important to givers or recipients and then

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Speaker 3: most important the same subject matter as the earlier twenty

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Speaker 3: sixteen paper giver recipient mismatches, quote discrepancies between the types

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Speaker 3: of gifts given and the types of gifts people prefer

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Speaker 3: to receive. And I think I should note that most

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Speaker 3: of this research tends to be focused on interpersonal consumer

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Speaker 3: gift giving, so the exchanging of gifts between regular people.

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Speaker 3: It's less relevant to things like gifts in a business context.

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Speaker 3: You know, you're buying a gift for your client, or

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Speaker 3: a free gift with purchase, or a holiday gift from

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Speaker 3: employer to employees. So that's its own kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: It has different dynamics, you know, obviously different dynamics for

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Speaker 3: things like state gifts or forgiving yourself a little gift.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, that last one's probably a topic onto itself,

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Speaker 2: because yeah, as we'll be getting into here, much of

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Speaker 2: the gift giving is going to depend on two major

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Speaker 2: points or more than a really points, I guess, but

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Speaker 2: it's going to depend on the moment where the gift

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Speaker 2: is given and received and then like the aftermath of it.

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Speaker 2: But with giving yourself a little gift. There's also the

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Speaker 2: purchase point, which could be I mean, especially nowadays we're

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Speaker 2: ordering things online, So it's kind of like you have

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Speaker 2: three potential areas to consider, right the moment you buy

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Speaker 2: that thing for yourself, the moment you receive that thing

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Speaker 2: for yourself, and then the rest of your life with

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Speaker 2: that thing. Which is the most exciting?

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Speaker 3: You know?

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Speaker 2: I think the depressing answer, without looking at any literature

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Speaker 2: on that particular topic, would be that it's just the

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Speaker 2: first thing, that is just the purchase point.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the most exciting. Okay, Well, do you want

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Speaker 3: to start by talking about the twenty sixteen paper.

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So the researchers here begin by acknowledging the

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Speaker 2: depth of pre existing research on gift giving and social psychology,

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Speaker 2: with one of the big take hombs being that most

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Speaker 2: of us are not jagnotogy and don't actually excel in

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Speaker 2: gift giving, which is to say, if we try it all,

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Speaker 2: we're not all that great at predicting the other person's preference.

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Speaker 2: This self other mismatch was studied in a key nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety seven paper from C. And Weber. Now, my thinking

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Speaker 2: on all of this, as I got into the sources,

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Speaker 2: was was, yeah, this seems right. There are so many

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Speaker 2: ways to mess up a gift or potentially mess it up.

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Speaker 2: And again I'm not getting into the actual bad gift giving,

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Speaker 2: but errors in gift giving, ways that you could ways

403
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Speaker 2: you could have done better in retrospect. Now, it was

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Speaker 2: interesting to jump into this paper again mostly having done

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Speaker 2: all of my holiday shopping but then second guessing everything

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Speaker 2: and also just reflecting on my own life as a

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Speaker 2: gift giver, because I think, for the most part I've

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Speaker 2: really leaned on that it's the thought that counts, even

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Speaker 2: if I'm being fairly self judgmental and asking myself how

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Speaker 2: much thought did I really put into any of those

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Speaker 2: gifts where it was the thought that counts. And you know,

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Speaker 2: I think we have to acknowledge too that now, especially

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Speaker 2: with the use of Amazon wish lists and so forth,

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Speaker 2: it takes a lot of the guesswork as well as

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Speaker 2: the skill and the personal touch out of gift giving.

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Speaker 2: So I don't know, it becomes harder for me to think, oh,

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Speaker 2: it's the thought that counts if all I'm doing is

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Speaker 2: thinking about putting your Amazon wishless link into the browser

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Speaker 2: and then picking something and it even makes sure that

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Speaker 2: it hasn't been purchased already, so it takes the guesswork

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Speaker 2: out of it.

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Speaker 3: Well, Rob, I don't know if your sources mentioned this

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Speaker 3: as much, but fortunately the research that I was looking

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Speaker 3: at indicates that you shouldn't be worried about that kind

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Speaker 3: of thought as much. That matters to recipients far less

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Speaker 3: than people think they do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they do get into that a little bit. That

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Speaker 2: is part of the mismatch.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there are different kinds of ways that thought can count,

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Speaker 3: and specifically the brainstorming original ideas and searching around for

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Speaker 3: the perfect gift that matters more in the minds of

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Speaker 3: gift givers than in the minds of gift receivers. Exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so in the paper gallic at All stress that quote.

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Speaker 2: There can be major consequences for giving ill chosen gifts,

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Speaker 2: and that is explored in a couple of cited papers.

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Speaker 2: A poorly chosen gift can annoy or even drive a

437
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:17,719
Speaker 2: wedge between the two people in the relationship. Again, everyone

438
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 2: out there, you're doing fine. Don't worry about this too much.

439
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 2: But yeah, on one level, it does sound pretty pretty extreme,

440
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: and I don't think we should lose too much sleep

441
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 2: over it. But I think we can all imagine if

442
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: we're spiraling and we're using worst case scenarios, we can

443
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 2: imagine the sort of gift, bad gift we might receive

444
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,479
Speaker 2: that might make us ask questions about the other person

445
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,159
Speaker 2: and our relationship with them. Do they truly understand this?

446
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 2: That would make you feel less seen by the giver?

447
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,399
Speaker 2: Like if I were to receive a Beef Jerky of

448
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: the Month club membership in the Jason Statham sixth Film

449
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 2: collection on Blu Ray, I would wonder if this person

450
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 2: truly knows me, or if they do know me? Like,

451
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 2: what are they trying to say with this, with these

452
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 2: these strangely chosen items?

453
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 3: Well, I know you're not a beef guy, but I

454
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 3: don't know, Rob. I feel like I know you pretty well,

455
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 3: and I I would have put it fifty to fifty

456
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 3: that you would be into the Jason Stathum. I don't know.

457
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,199
Speaker 2: I don't I mean say, I mean, I'm down for

458
00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 2: a deluxe Blu Ray of Ghost of Mars okay, but

459
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying it would it would? It would

460
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 2: make me wonder, It's like, why did they go for that?

461
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 3: Can I just feel in a random thing that I

462
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 3: was trying to think of an overly specific gift earlier,

463
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 3: like a thing that you would receive and you'd be like,

464
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 3: why did they get me this? And for some reason,

465
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 3: the object that popped into my mind is a velvet football. Ooh,

466
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 3: what is that? I don't know. It came from deep

467
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:48,240
Speaker 3: in the void.

468
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:53,439
Speaker 2: It does sound useless but also luxurious. So yes, it's

469
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 2: a perfect.

470
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 3: Gift, like expensive, but you can't use it and I

471
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,639
Speaker 3: don't really I don't like football and I don't have

472
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 3: anything velvet. So why did I get this? I don't know.

473
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 2: Oh, I have a bad gift for you. This one

474
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 2: is based on true stories. I'm combining them into a

475
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 2: single gift. But you open the box and it contains

476
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 2: a chick track warning you about how dangerous dungeons and

477
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 2: Dragons is to your soul. I want half of a

478
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 2: jog suit. You will receive the other half of the

479
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 2: jogsuit the following Christmas as a separate gift, and the

480
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 2: two the up the bottom of the top will never

481
00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 2: match because one will have had a year's worth of

482
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 2: fading if you wear it.

483
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 3: Oh amazing, it was that done maliciously or just I

484
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 3: don't know half of the tracks.

485
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 2: I don't know that, I don't know why it happened,

486
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 2: but based on a true story.

487
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 3: Well, I've got some interesting feedback on that one later on,

488
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 3: because there's at least some research showing that incomplete gifts

489
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 3: are not always unwelcome.

490
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 2: M Okay, all right, yeah, I have about incomplete Well,

491
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 2: I have a bit about gifts that are perhaps artificially

492
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 2: divvied up into multiple gifts. But I don't think they

493
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 2: were talking about from Christmas to Christmas?

494
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 3: Okay.

495
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 2: Now, the paper refers to many of the ways that

496
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 2: gift giving can err, the various errors that you might

497
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: commit in giving a gift. They involve such questions as as,

498
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 2: what if the gift you give is too expensive or

499
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: too cheap, what if the gift isn't desirable on one

500
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 2: level or another, What if the gift isn't feasible again

501
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 2: on one level or another. What if it's too material,

502
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 2: what if it's too intangible? What if it's not thoughtful enough?

503
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 2: What if it's too traditional? What if it's not traditional enough?

504
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 2: And then you might even ask yourself, is it socially responsible?

505
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:43,479
Speaker 1: Like?

506
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 2: Have I made a socially responsible choice in picking out

507
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 2: this gift for the other person. And naturally, I, like

508
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 2: most of you, have seen enough Christmas media in my

509
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 2: time to add some additional ways that it can go wrong.

510
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 2: What if the gift you're giving bears the same telltale

511
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: L shaped boxes all the other gifts that the recipient

512
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: received this year?

513
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 3: Oh is that? What is the L shaped box? The

514
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 3: specific thing?

515
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 2: That's just a moment in Christmas vacation. He's given the

516
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 2: gift to his boss and there are all these gifts

517
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 2: in the background, and they're all the exact same shape.

518
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 2: You've made some sort of air because he's getting a

519
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: lot of whatever that is.

520
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 3: Well, I have a very specific story like that in

521
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 3: my family, which is a couple of years ago. My

522
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 3: father in law and I both got my mother in

523
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 3: law the same gift for Christmas, and it was a

524
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 3: very specific gift. It was, if you can believe it,

525
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 3: we both got her a like an aquamarine or I

526
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 3: don't know, my colors like teal a teal ukulele.

527
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yes, yeah, you can't use two of those, right,

528
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a musician, but not without some

529
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 2: exceptional toast skill.

530
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really couldn't believe it happened, but it did.

531
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 2: All right, here's some more. What if the gift you're

532
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: giving is in fact your own cat wrapped up in

533
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 2: a box. That also occurs in Christmas vacation. Does my

534
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 2: gift involve felony kidnapping? That's another one from that film.

535
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 2: What if the recipient sold all of their hair to

536
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 2: buy your gift, and now your hair care related gift

537
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 2: is useless, at least in the short term.

538
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: I don't recognize where that's from either.

539
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: Then the gift of the magi, right, Oh okay, yeah,

540
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 2: I mean it's one of those depending on what side

541
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: of the gift of the Magi you're on. It's like

542
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 2: the hair will grow back. I don't know about the

543
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: time piece, right. What if the recipient is much too

544
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 2: old for the pjs you sent. We're all familiar with

545
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: that one. What if the gift is in fact a

546
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 2: high maintenance supernatural pet that will reproduce and mutate into

547
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 2: destructive monsters if not cared for properly.

548
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, your classic Grimlin problem.

549
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'm going to come back to that one

550
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 2: as a prime example. And then, of course, are my

551
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 2: gifts magical rings that will bend nations to my will.

552
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 2: That's more in well in the category though of malicious gifts,

553
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 2: though as opposed to any kind of good natured gift giving.

554
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 3: Seems great at first, but the preciousness takes on a

555
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 3: really nasty quality over time.

556
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 2: That's right, So whether we're dealing with real or fictional gifts.

557
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: The authors drive home that everyone in the scenario is

558
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: trying to give a good gift. After all, no one

559
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 2: wants to be thought of as a lousy gift giver.

560
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 2: There's a basic social contract involved in all of this,

561
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 2: and we try to hit at least our criteria for

562
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 2: a good gift, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it

563
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 2: fits their criteria for a good gift as well. And

564
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 2: in this they present a possible unifying explanation of why

565
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 2: errors in gift giving occur.

566
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 3: Quote.

567
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 2: We propose that many giver recipient discrepancies can be at

568
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 2: least partially explained by the notion that when evaluating the

569
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 2: quality of a gift, givers primarily focus on the moment

570
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 2: of the exchange, where recipients instead mostly focus on how

571
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 2: valuable a gift will be throughout their ownership of it.

572
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 2: Givers and receivers have different perspectives on what makes a

573
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 2: gift valuable. Givers interpret that to mean that the gift

574
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 2: will make the recipient feel delighted, impressed, surprised, and or

575
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 2: touched when he or she receives and opens it, whereas

576
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 2: recipients find value in factors that allow them to better

577
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 2: utilize and enjoy a gift during their subsequent ownership of it.

578
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: This is a major theme in the twenty twenty three

579
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 3: paper as well. One of the main reasons they identify

580
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 3: for gift giving going wrong is that givers focus on

581
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 3: the moment they're opening the gift. They want it to

582
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 3: be delightful in that moment, whereas recipients value much more

583
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 3: gifts that continue to delight or or provide use for

584
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 3: them over time. Yeah yeah.

585
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 2: They also summarize this as coming down to quote giver

586
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 2: recipient asymmetries and evaluations of particular aspects of the gift,

587
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 2: aspects of the giver or aspects of the recipient. And

588
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 2: so my mind instantly went to Grimlins and all of this,

589
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 2: then to practical real world examples, but then back to Grimlins.

590
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 2: So that's where I'm going to stay for a minute.

591
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:17,719
Speaker 2: If you're familiar with the classic holiday horror comedy film.

592
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 2: When Peter's dad Randall buys the Magua Gizmo or the

593
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 2: Magua that will be renamed Gizmo from mister Wing's store

594
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 2: in Chinatown, he wasn't thinking about the long term challenges

595
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 2: of owning an exotic, supernatural cynia pet. He was thinking

596
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 2: about that moment of exchange. And it is a memorable

597
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 2: moment in the film. I mean, you can look it up,

598
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: there are clips of it online. But when Billy meets

599
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 2: Gizmo for the first time, it's cute and everybody loves it.

600
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 3: I mean, it's hard to say no to Gizmo exactly,

601
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,479
Speaker 3: even I know all the dangers, and if I received Gizmo,

602
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 3: I would still want to give him a big hug.

603
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is something to keep in mind. The

604
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 2: gift of the magua here in Grimlins is successful. Billy

605
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: is enraptured. Billy's dad, of course, is eating it up

606
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 2: because he's given what seems to be a great gift.

607
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 2: Mom even the dog agree that this Gizmo chap is wonderful.

608
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 2: If they had any clue what they were getting into

609
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 2: and what the rest of the movie and the sequel

610
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: is going to consist of gift ownership, then they surely

611
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 2: see that this is a prime error in gift giving.

612
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: He has given Billy a gift that is going to

613
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 2: be arduous to own. It's gonna, in the best cases,

614
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: it's going to involve a lot of upkeep, and it's

615
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: also it's going to get a number of people killed,

616
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 2: at least in the first movie.

617
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, if your gift will wheel a chainsaw against you,

618
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 3: I think that probably counts as an error.

619
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. If it will potentially bring about the downfall of

620
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: New York City and can only be stopped, you know,

621
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 2: via some last minute heroics, then yeah, it might have

622
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 2: been an error. So the authors of the twenty sixteen paper,

623
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 2: they described that the attributes of a good gift basically

624
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 2: break down as follows. The gifts should be the gift

625
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 2: should be desirable, it should be surprising, and it should

626
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 2: symbolize the giver recipient relationship. And I would argue that

627
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,360
Speaker 2: the gizmo does seem to check off these boxes. Gizmo

628
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 2: is desirable, he's certainly surprising, and the gift does seem

629
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 2: to on some levels symbolize the inventive nurturing relationship between

630
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: Billy and his father.

631
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way it symbolizes the giver recipient relationship. In

632
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 3: some of the literature, this is called this is a

633
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 3: type of thoughtfulness when we say the thought counts and

634
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 3: giving a gift. This is relationship oriented thoughtfulness, as opposed

635
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 3: to the non relationship oriented thoughtfulness, which is just like

636
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 3: the giver spending a lot of time and effort like

637
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 3: brainstorming a gift. But the gift might not actually, you know,

638
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 3: be a result of a personal sacrifice that you know

639
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 3: that shows how much the person loves you, or might

640
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 3: not have something to do with the relationship between the

641
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 3: giver and the recipient.

642
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, there can be a lot of asymmetry there between

643
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 2: how much thought you're putting into it, how much thought

644
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 2: you expect other people to interpret in your gift giving,

645
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 2: and so forth. And you can imagine the asymmetry going

646
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,879
Speaker 2: the other direction too, Like you imagine a scenario where

647
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 2: someone's just like, yeah, I give lacy underwear to everybody

648
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,840
Speaker 2: for Christmas, and people who are on the receiving end

649
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: of this, they might they might judge it to have

650
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 2: veered over into inappropriateness, saying like, what are you trying

651
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 2: to say about our relationship. We don't really have a

652
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 2: lacy underwear holiday gift giving relationship.

653
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is one of the risks inherent in

654
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 3: all gift giving is that an inappropriate gift of some

655
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:57,359
Speaker 3: sort will be interpreted as an incorrect interpretation of the relationship.

656
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 2: The twenty sixteen paper Galic at All include an entire

657
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 2: chart about errors in gift giving, presenting first a gift

658
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 2: giving rule. You know, one of these, like gifts should

659
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 2: be this or that, How the giver and receiver may

660
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 2: differ on the definition and the gift exchange thought process.

661
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to go through all of it.

662
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 2: You can look up this paper online. It's it's it's

663
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's a fun paper to roll through.

664
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 2: But as an example, here's one of the categories gift

665
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: giving rule. Gifts should surprise the recipients giver preference unrequested

666
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 2: gifts receiver preference requested gifts giver thought process. Unrequested gifts

667
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 2: will surprise receiver thought process. Personally requested gifts are more valuable.

668
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this lines up with some of the

669
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 3: stuff that I was reading that it's not that a

670
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 3: surprise gift is without value to a recipient. Clearly, surprised

671
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,279
Speaker 3: does bring some value with it, but it seems that

672
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 3: givers care more about the gift being a surprise than

673
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 3: recipients do. Recipients on average, like to receive things that

674
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 3: they have explicitly asked for, and sometimes are unhappy if

675
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 3: they explicitly ask for something and get something else.

676
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you gave me a magua, but I

677
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: need more socks. I had a plan for socks. Now

678
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:18,280
Speaker 2: I have to make a plan for a magwa.

679
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 3: From what I'm reading, it seems that the place where

680
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 3: a surprise is really delightful to the recipient is not

681
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 3: in what they get, but in getting a gift on

682
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 3: an unexpected occasion. So gifts that are not associated with

683
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 3: a normal gift giving holiday or an expectation that a

684
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 3: gift is incoming a gift that's just unexpected and out

685
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 3: of the blue. On average, those are ranked as more

686
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,840
Speaker 3: delightful and exciting to recipients than gifts that come at

687
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,320
Speaker 3: a time of gift obligation.

688
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. The authors argue that a lot of errors

689
00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: in gift giving come down to conflict between the givers

690
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: desire to dazzle in the moment of gift giving, you know,

691
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 2: the opening of the gift, if you will, the unwrapping,

692
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 2: and then the experience of owning said gift on the

693
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 2: part of the recipient. And one example that instantly came

694
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:12,879
Speaker 2: to my mind to draw from The Simpsons is when

695
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 2: mister Burns gives the Simpsons family a giant stone head

696
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 2: that is just comically large. It fills up their entire

697
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 2: living room. Mister Burns clearly is all about dazzling and

698
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 2: making a big show of things here. He has not

699
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 2: given any thought to like, where are they going to

700
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 2: put this head? You know, how are they going to

701
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: transport it into the basement for the rest of the

702
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:35,720
Speaker 2: series and so forth.

703
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, and often we see it again down in the basement,

704
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 3: like behind a bunch of junk when in later episodes.

705
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:43,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like how they keep coming back to it.

706
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 2: So the authors drive home that in making this sort

707
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 2: of error again, an error where the giver is focusing

708
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 2: on the moment of the giving as opposed to the

709
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 2: ownership of the gift. The error could hypothetically occur due

710
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 2: to three different methods. Three different things could be going on.

711
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 2: One is that the giver might truly believe that the

712
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 2: recipient will place more value on the wow moment of

713
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 2: giving or opening. And I think that is understandable. It's

714
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 2: a very understandable error to make. I've probably made that

715
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: error all the time as well. And part of it,

716
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 2: I think is because there is so much media attention

717
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 2: tied to such a moment. A lot of our memories

718
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 2: as givers are tied to those moments because a lot

719
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 2: of times we don't see ownership of a gift unless

720
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 2: it's even if it's an immediate family member. You don't

721
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 2: necessarily you're not going to keep checking in and observing

722
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 2: the life of that gift, and that individual's actions and

723
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 2: experiences and recipient excitement can be very satisfying. I mean,

724
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 2: there's no denying totally, all right. The second possibility is

725
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 2: the giver realizes that they should be focusing more on

726
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 2: the ownership of the gift versus that wow moment of giving,

727
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 2: but they do it anyway for selfish reasons. They just

728
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 2: want to create that moment. And as the authors get

729
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 2: into elsewhere in the paper, if there's a performance aspect

730
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 2: of it to the whole thing, If they're giving the

731
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 2: gift in front of others, that could be the sort

732
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 2: of thing that sort of corrupts the moment as well.

733
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 2: And then it's also the third possibility is they're simply

734
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 2: so focused on the moment of giving that they just

735
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 2: fail to consider other factors. And I think that's very

736
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:28,720
Speaker 2: reasonable as well. How often are we just super hyper

737
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 2: focused on one particular gift in one particular recipient, Especially

738
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 2: around the holidays, we're giving multiple gifts, We're trying to

739
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 2: check off a number of boxes, and we may just

740
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 2: not consider the life of the gift for that individual,

741
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 2: and we might just lean like I have many times,

742
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 2: on the idea that it's the thought that counts and

743
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 2: if they don't like it, and they might not like it,

744
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,839
Speaker 2: they can return it. And the very least I've given

745
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:57,879
Speaker 2: them a very elaborate gift card with extra work involved. Now,

746
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: how do you give better gifts? On all of this?

747
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 2: They drive from that. The big answer here, whenever possible,

748
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 2: is just to think as a gift giver, not just

749
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,720
Speaker 2: about that that opening of the gift, that that giving

750
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 2: of the gift and the receipt of the gift, but

751
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 2: also the ownership of the gift to whatever degree you can.

752
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: And obviously a number of factors are going to influence

753
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 2: the process, including well, you know about the other person

754
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 2: and the details of your relationship. But it sounds like

755
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 2: a good rule of thumb, you know, to whatever degree possible.

756
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 2: You know, you're thinking about the person opening the gift,

757
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 2: think about the week that follows, think about the month

758
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 2: the month that follows. What is ownership of that item

759
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 2: going to look like? M Yeah, but I have to admit, like,

760
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 2: that's not a super fun consideration. It's far more fun.

761
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 2: It's far more exciting to just think about them opening

762
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 2: the box or you know, pulling things out of the

763
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 2: stocking on Christmas morning.

764
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I can't deny the appeal of that

765
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 3: moment of delight when opening a gift. But I don't know,

766
00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 3: I can see the I feel like I get a

767
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,439
Speaker 3: sense of pleasure thinking about people using a gift over

768
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 3: time that I gave them. That that consistently brings me

769
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 3: a kind of warm glow, which is one of the

770
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 3: self focused reasons we give gifts. In fact, would this

771
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 3: be a good reason or not a good reason? A

772
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 3: good time then to talk about the motives of gift

773
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,720
Speaker 3: givers and gift selection.

774
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into the motives of it.

775
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 3: Okay, so this is a big thing that the authors

776
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 3: of this later twenty twenty three paper talk about. You know.

777
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,240
Speaker 3: They say, when you look at the motives of gift givers,

778
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 3: you can ask this question two different ways. One is

779
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 3: why are you giving a gift? The other is why

780
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 3: did you pick this gift? And they say that the

781
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 3: research really reveals four overarching themes and the motivations for

782
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 3: giving a gift, which the authors call altruism, egoism, social

783
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 3: norm compliance, and diaddic benefits. So altruism, that's pretty straightforward.

784
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 3: That's like the most pure kind of gift giving thing

785
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 3: you can do. It's a desire to bring happiness or

786
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 3: provide utility for the person you're giving the gift too,

787
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 3: no ulterior motive.

788
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just pure sanit territory right here. This

789
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 2: is why the big guy does.

790
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 3: It right now. It's impossible to ever completely rule out

791
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 3: that people could have secret ulterior motives for doing nice

792
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 3: things for others, but I think we can assume that,

793
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 3: at least consciously, people really do sometimes give gifts because

794
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 3: they just want to delight or benefit the recipient. Yeah,

795
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 3: but the other side of the coin is egoism. We've

796
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 3: already touched on a few of these motivations, but there

797
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 3: are reasons for giving gifts and for selecting certain gifts

798
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 3: that benefit the gift giver. So how would giving benefit

799
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 3: the gift giver? One idea is by encouraging reciprocity. A

800
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 3: gift given to elicit something of value being given in return,

801
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 3: maybe to make somebody give you gifts back. A gift

802
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 3: given to create positive emotions in the gift giver, like

803
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 3: that warm glow. You know, we get something out of

804
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 3: it too. It feels nice to have somebody open a

805
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 3: gift and be delighted. A gift given to earn social

806
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 3: approval or status, This one feels a little more Mockavellian.

807
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 3: Sometimes giving a really nice gift is sort of like

808
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 3: a way of bragging, isn't it.

809
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, this we might we might be getting into

810
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: Jack donaghy territory. You know, the power play of the

811
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 2: exact lift. Yeah, you've dominated your opponent by giving them

812
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 2: a gift far more perfect than anything they could possibly return.

813
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 3: Well, I think about in Mafia movies, you know, in

814
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 3: Good Fellas, when he's going into the club giving everybody

815
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars. Tip Is that because he's actually really

816
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 3: generous and he wants to benefit their lives? Or is

817
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 3: it because he's showing off how wealthy and powerful he is.

818
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I can give this kind of thoughtless gift.

819
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter to me.

820
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then there's another thing that the authors call

821
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 3: internalizing external effects. This is giving a gift that, through

822
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 3: its consumption by the recipient, actually provides benefit to the

823
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:03,720
Speaker 3: gift giver. So an example here would be my wife

824
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 3: gets me cooking equipment that I am going to use

825
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,360
Speaker 3: to make food for her, you know, And I'm not,

826
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 3: you know, impugning that. I think that's great. I love

827
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 3: getting new cooking equipment. But we both benefit, you know.

828
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 3: I get to use this thing. Also she's going to

829
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 3: get to eat the delicious meals that I make with it.

830
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 3: I think a very common one here is like romantic

831
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 3: couples getting each other clothes or perfume or cologne or

832
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 3: something that they would personally enjoy their partner wearing, you know,

833
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 3: or you know, you can frame this in a positive

834
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 3: way or in a negative way, like I'm going to

835
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 3: get my husband a new jacket so he stops wearing

836
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 3: that embarrassing ratty old one.

837
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 2: Mm. Yeah, and unless you get into the like the

838
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 2: delicate details of the gift giving between two you know,

839
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: very well known participants, Yeah, they're going to know how

840
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 2: to walk that line right hopefully.

841
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 3: So those are altruism and egoism. There are a couple

842
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 3: other things. One is social norm compliance. It's like, we

843
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,319
Speaker 3: got new neighbors, We're going over to say hi, aren't

844
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 3: you supposed to bring a gift? I feel like we're

845
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 3: not supposed to go without a gift, So let's put

846
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 3: a bow on this bottle of wine we didn't open yet.

847
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 3: This is a case where you have no strong, independent

848
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 3: desire to give a gift, but you just give one

849
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 3: out of social expectation. You feel like you have to

850
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 3: do it because of the occasion or the relationship. And

851
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 3: here a common emotional motivation forgiving the gift is to

852
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 3: avoid feelings of guilt or to avoid feelings of shame

853
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 3: or embarrassment just for failing to give a gift in

854
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 3: the situation where it would be expected. Yeah. And then finally,

855
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 3: this one I thought was really interesting. This is the

856
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 3: motivation they call diadic benefits. Some research highlights how gift

857
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:54,720
Speaker 3: giving sometimes is motivated by a desire to benefit all

858
00:46:54,760 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 3: parties within a relationship, sometimes with reference to effects on

859
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 3: the relationship itself. So these would be gifts that establish

860
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,439
Speaker 3: a sense of togetherness, like when you know, you give

861
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 3: a family member a framed photo of the family altogether,

862
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 3: or you get something that the family will all use together.

863
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 3: There are gifts that people use to try to strengthen

864
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,919
Speaker 3: an insecure romantic relationship. There are gifts that people use

865
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 3: they're kind of still meta referential gifts to clarify what

866
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 3: kind of relationship people have, Like I'm getting you this

867
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 3: gift that says we are more than friends, that sort

868
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,720
Speaker 3: of thing. And then there's another thing that I actually

869
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 3: made reference to earlier. And unless we cut that part out,

870
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 3: I don't know. But there's one thing I brought up earlier,

871
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 3: which is the idea of gifts that lower search costs

872
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,839
Speaker 3: for both parties through specialization of searches. And this would

873
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 3: be like I bring you gifts from my hometown, you

874
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 3: bring me gifts from your home toown. We're actually saving

875
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,799
Speaker 3: each other the work of traveling to get something that

876
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:07,080
Speaker 3: we each would like. Yeah, now I wanted to mention

877
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 3: one more thing, which is egoistic reasons that have been

878
00:48:11,040 --> 00:48:16,800
Speaker 3: documented in experiments why people choose certain gifts over others.

879
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 3: Selfish reasons people could have for selecting goods that they know,

880
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 3: or at least suspect are not what the recipient would

881
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 3: like the most. And these were actually really interesting to

882
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 3: me because I was starting to think, like, oh man,

883
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 3: have I ever done anything like this? I don't know,

884
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 3: but there are some interesting documented reasons. One is wanting

885
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 3: to avoid feeling envy. In a paper from twenty nineteen,

886
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 3: Givey and Gallic found that people sometimes give gifts that

887
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 3: they know people want less, but the givers select these

888
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 3: less desirable gifts if the more desirable gift would be

889
00:48:56,280 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 3: better than the giver's own possessions give her the interpretation here.

890
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 3: The interpretation that they put on this behavior is that

891
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 3: the giver anticipates feeling envious of the gift that they

892
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 3: got for somebody else, and thus they don't get it.

893
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 3: They get them something worse on purpose to avoid devaluing

894
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 3: their own stash of goods. This paper is titled keeping

895
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 3: the Joneses from getting ahead in the first place.

896
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 2: Oh, so this would be like if say you're a

897
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 2: whiskey drinker. Yeah, and you, for whatever reason you decided, Okay,

898
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 2: I need to get a bottle of whiskey as a

899
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 2: gift for this friend, and you want to get them

900
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 2: a nice bottle. But you don't want to get them

901
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 2: a nicer bottle than your nicest bottle of whiskey, because

902
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 2: then you know that you'll feel a certain way about

903
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 2: them having a better bottle than you.

904
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 3: Exactly, Yes, So people would in some cases go for

905
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 3: the less nice whiskey there, even if they know the

906
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 3: person would like the better one. Another reason that people

907
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:01,640
Speaker 3: might get a less preferred gift is wanting to feel unique.

908
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 3: So in a paper published in twenty twenty, same pair

909
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 3: of authors Gallic and Give Again. These authors are also

910
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:09,479
Speaker 3: both on this twenty twenty three paper and the twenty

911
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 3: sixteen paper. They reported the results of five experiments which

912
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 3: confirmed this phenomenon that people will often give people gifts

913
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,759
Speaker 3: that they know the recipient will like less if the

914
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 3: alternative is giving them a more desirable gift that the

915
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 3: giver also owns. So it's like, you know, I, well,

916
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 3: I already have one of those, So I don't want

917
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 3: to get that thing for Jack, even though I know

918
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 3: he would like to have it. I'm going to get

919
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:43,839
Speaker 3: him something different, and the authors interpreted this behavior as

920
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 3: a desire for uniqueness, that givers wanted to feel unique,

921
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 3: and they would feel less unique if the recipient got

922
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 3: this item that the giver already owned, so they choose

923
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,399
Speaker 3: something else, you know, so like I'm still the only

924
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 3: person who gets to have this thing. And then finally,

925
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,800
Speaker 3: they point to an experiment research by Mary Steffil and

926
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 3: Robin Lebuff from twenty fourteen that found when people are

927
00:51:09,800 --> 00:51:15,279
Speaker 3: shopping for multiple different gift recipients, gift givers will give

928
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 3: gifts that they expect people to like less in order

929
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 3: to make sure that everyone gets a different and unique gift.

930
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 3: And this is true if even when the giver believes that, like,

931
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 3: one gift given to everybody is something that they would

932
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 3: all like more, just because they don't want to be

933
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 3: seen as giving the same thing to everybody because it

934
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 3: looks less thoughtful.

935
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 2: So even if everybody wants a la boo boo, you

936
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,919
Speaker 2: you're just gonna only one person gets a la boo

937
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 2: boo because we don't want to decrease the specialness of

938
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 2: that receipt.

939
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean some people might get everybody the la

940
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 3: boo boo. But yeah, there are a lot of There

941
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:51,719
Speaker 3: are a lot of people who feel uncomfortable about that.

942
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 3: They feel like it would look unthoughtful of them to

943
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 3: get the same gift for everyone, So they've got to

944
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 3: mix it up and end up getting people stuff that

945
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 3: they even they expect that people will end up liking less.

946
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 3: And then finally, you can imagine how other egoistic motivations

947
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,720
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier in the in the idea of giving

948
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 3: people gifts would also affect the selection of particular gifts.

949
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 3: I was thinking of the the internalizing external effects issue.

950
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 3: So if I'm getting my partner an item of clothing

951
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 3: that I would enjoy seeing them where, or getting them

952
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 3: a perfumer cologne that I like the smell of, you know,

953
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 3: in a way, that's a it's a gift for them,

954
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 3: but it's also a gift for me. And then you

955
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 3: can like kind of move that slider up and down

956
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:40,799
Speaker 3: the scale. Some gifts for them and for me are

957
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 3: really a lot more a gift for me. I'm thinking

958
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 3: of in the Sopranos when Aj gets his mom The

959
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 3: Matrix on DVD for her birthday.

960
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 2: So I haven't seen the sopranos. But I'm assuming the

961
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 2: scenario here is he really wants to watch the matrix.

962
00:52:54,719 --> 00:53:01,759
Speaker 3: Yes, she's like, haven't seen it? Yeah? And then of

963
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 3: course there there are also these these giver recipient diad benefits.

964
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 3: You know, you can see this in the preference for

965
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 3: material gifts over experiential gifts, because there's a common belief

966
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:18,760
Speaker 3: people have that material gifts will strengthen relationships by acting

967
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 3: as a mnemonic device. So people think, every time she

968
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 3: sees this officially licensed space jam wall clock, she will

969
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:29,360
Speaker 3: think of me because I gave it to her. I

970
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 3: think the research seems kind of mixed on that. I

971
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 3: think maybe actually relationships might be strengthened more by experiential

972
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 3: gifts as opposed to material ones.

973
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 2: Mm.

974
00:53:39,360 --> 00:53:39,760
Speaker 3: Yeah.

975
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 2: But in all of these though, there's there's so many factors.

976
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 2: Because in the paper I was looking at, they brought

977
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 2: up the idea that when it comes to material versus

978
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 2: experience gifts. The thing about experience gifts is generally it's

979
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:54,560
Speaker 2: not like you open the gift and it's like, hey,

980
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 2: you're going on a canoe trip right now, right, It's

981
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 2: it's some time later, So there's kind of a delay

982
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 2: in the full expression of the gift, and depending on

983
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 2: how you're approaching it, like that could in the moment

984
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 2: feel less exciting. It's I guess the well, you know,

985
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 2: it's gonna vary. They're gonna all these other factors are

986
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 2: going to come into play.

987
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, obviously there's going to be individual variation

988
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:21,759
Speaker 3: and all these trends we're talking about. So you know,

989
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 3: even if people feel more closeness from experiential gifts on average,

990
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 3: that's still just going to be on average. I mean

991
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 3: some people, in some cases the material gift is going

992
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 3: to be much preferable depending on what it is and

993
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 3: the person and all that. So you know, there's no

994
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 3: one size fits all for gift giving. This is just

995
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 3: looking at trends basic.

996
00:54:39,480 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean it's worth saying too, like you

997
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 2: can be the sort of person who in general values

998
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 2: experience over material possessions, and you can still find yourself

999
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 2: in the scenario where a piece of plastic garbage is

1000
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 2: going to hit in the way that a gift certificate

1001
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 2: for a canoe trip is not. And it doesn't mean

1002
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 2: that that's not a great, great gift new trip like

1003
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:02,680
Speaker 2: it may that may be the best gift you got

1004
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 2: that year, and it's going to lead to memorable moments

1005
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 2: down the line, it's going to strengthen relationships. But there's

1006
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 2: something about that plastic garbage. Sometimes it just absolutely does hit.

1007
00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 3: Sometimes it hits it's just great. Okay, So I'm going

1008
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 3: to skip ahead to the part of this paper where

1009
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 3: they talk about our core idea today, the giver recipient mismatches.

1010
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 3: You know, so like why do people end up getting

1011
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:26,400
Speaker 3: gifts they don't like or gifts that are less desirable

1012
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 3: when a more desirable gift was equally possible. Why do

1013
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:34,879
Speaker 3: so many gift exchanges leave people feeling unsatisfied? And again,

1014
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:38,720
Speaker 3: these answers are focused on good faith exchanges, genuine errors

1015
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 3: in gift giving, not incidents where people give a bad

1016
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 3: gift on purpose. And most of this research comes from

1017
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 3: experiments in the domain of psychology. A lot of the

1018
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 3: stuff they talk about in this paper is more from

1019
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:51,359
Speaker 3: like business marketing and stuff, but a lot of this

1020
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 3: is psychology. So one big theme they identify for giver

1021
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:01,800
Speaker 3: recipient mismatches, in other words, bad gift experiences, is based

1022
00:56:01,840 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 3: on gifting norms. The authors say that givers are too

1023
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:11,120
Speaker 3: focused on the informal rules or norms of gift giving,

1024
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:14,839
Speaker 3: and they end up giving less desired gifts because of it.

1025
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:17,879
Speaker 3: So an example would be certain types of gifts are

1026
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 3: associated with certain relationships or certain holidays. The authors mention

1027
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 3: experiments showing that on Valentine's Day, givers feel pressure to

1028
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 3: give gifts that are appropriate to the occasion, like on

1029
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:35,799
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day, you give your romantic partner a piece of jewelry,

1030
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 3: even though recipients would actually more often be happier receiving

1031
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 3: a gift not traditionally associated with the occasion. Again, these

1032
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,759
Speaker 3: are just trends. You know. Some people love getting jewelry,

1033
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:49,960
Speaker 3: but a lot of people would rather. For example, in

1034
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 3: one study, they looked at a lot of people would

1035
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 3: rather receive an e reader than a piece of jewelry

1036
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 3: on Valentine's Day. But the giver does it feels like

1037
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:00,440
Speaker 3: that's not right to them. It's Valentine's Day, so it

1038
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,879
Speaker 3: needs to be a certain kind of gift.

1039
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 2: But media hasn't programmed us yet to expect an e

1040
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 2: reader for Valentine's Day.

1041
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, but on average, So yeah, you've got this occasion

1042
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 3: or relationship related pressure that is driving the gift giver's

1043
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 3: aim off, driving it further away from the target area

1044
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:23,439
Speaker 3: that the recipient would actually enjoy the most. Another way

1045
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 3: that gift giving norms can lead people astray is that

1046
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 3: givers prefer to give new products instead of superior used

1047
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 3: products of the same type. It just feels like you're

1048
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 3: not supposed to give people something used as a gift.

1049
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 3: But you know, often people would rather get a better

1050
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 3: thing in used form than a less good thing in

1051
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 3: new form. But the giver, they're going to opt for

1052
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 3: the new thing because it just doesn't feel right to

1053
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 3: give something used.

1054
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And it's weird how that can certainly coexist

1055
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 2: with say, putting particular used book on your wish list,

1056
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 2: like putting it out there that yeah, I want this book,

1057
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:04,919
Speaker 2: and the only way to get it is to get

1058
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 2: an old copy from the eighties. There's not a new copy.

1059
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, when you're actually buying things, you're like, well,

1060
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 2: I guess I'm gonna get them the nice one that's

1061
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 2: gonna you know, I guess selfishly. You know, we can

1062
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 2: even think that's going to reflect on me better that

1063
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:19,880
Speaker 2: I actually ponied up and bought them the new edition.

1064
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 3: I love getting used books that that feels like kind

1065
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 3: of actually extra special to me. It's got more character

1066
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 3: in it.

1067
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's got a history. It's sometimes it has

1068
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 2: notes in it.

1069
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 3: Another example is that of the norms leading people astrays

1070
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 3: that givers refrain from gifts that have been given within

1071
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 3: the same giver recipient diad before, even when recipients wish

1072
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 3: to receive the same familiar gifts again. It just feels

1073
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 3: like you're supposed to mix it up, you know, like

1074
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 3: you should give something different. But often recipients are happy

1075
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 3: to receive an already familiar gift if it's something they

1076
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 3: like and could consume again. Okay, next thing. This lines

1077
00:58:58,640 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 3: up very much with the twenty six and paper They

1078
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 3: say people are led astray and gift giving by temporal focus.

1079
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 3: Givers focus too much on making sure the recipient will

1080
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 3: be happy in the moment they open the gift, as

1081
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 3: opposed to making sure that it's going to give them

1082
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 3: lasting enjoyment or utility over time. So givers seem to

1083
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 3: prefer fun gifts that are not very useful, while recipients

1084
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:27,120
Speaker 3: prefer useful gifts. And the idea of fun gifts that

1085
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 3: are not very useful. It makes me think of a

1086
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 3: lot of the things we give each other around Christmas.

1087
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 3: And this is not to slam these things, because I

1088
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 3: give these things too. I mean they are fun at Christmas,

1089
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 3: but like weird little novelties that are funny when you

1090
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 3: first open them.

1091
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it is weird to reflect on these

1092
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 2: because some of these certainly do find their way into

1093
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 2: the garbage, generally by way of a junk drawer two

1094
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 2: or three years later. But I have to admit, like,

1095
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 2: I have some of those gifts that are still in

1096
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 2: my bedside table, and I'd never use them, use them,

1097
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 2: but I do look at them occasionally and I'm like, oh,

1098
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 2: I remember when I received this gift and it was

1099
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 2: novel and surprising, and therefore it gets to stay in

1100
01:00:10,760 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 2: the drawer.

1101
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 3: Oh well, yeah. I mean sometimes, like we said earlier,

1102
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,439
Speaker 3: the same object that you would not value that much

1103
01:00:18,520 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 3: or buy for yourself, if it is a gift, you know,

1104
01:00:20,880 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 3: for cinemental reasons, it can take on value for you.

1105
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 2: Yea, even if it's kind of like you know, pointless

1106
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 2: centiment where if someone says that came up and said

1107
01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 2: why are you keeping that? You got to throw it out?

1108
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:32,840
Speaker 2: I would be like, oh yeah, okay, that's a good point.

1109
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 2: I'll do that, but it can it's sticky, just sticky

1110
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:38,240
Speaker 2: enough to remain in my life.

1111
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 3: Okay, this next example I think will be really interesting

1112
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,080
Speaker 3: because it kind of runs counter to your example of

1113
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:46,480
Speaker 3: a bad gift that's like the half of the sweat

1114
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 3: sweatsuit and then the other half later. Uh. The authors

1115
01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 3: here say that studies have found givers are anxious about

1116
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:58,040
Speaker 3: giving gifts that are incomplete or somehow not yet matured.

1117
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 3: Recipients are often quite happy with gifts that are incomplete

1118
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:05,760
Speaker 3: or will grow in enjoyment or utility over time. So

1119
01:01:06,120 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 3: a few examples here, givers would rather give a less

1120
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 3: desirable bouquet of flowers that are already in bloom than

1121
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:19,480
Speaker 3: a more desirable bouquet that is not yet in bloom,

1122
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 3: and so like givers are, they would be anxious about

1123
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 3: the fact that the flowers are not ready yet when

1124
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 3: they're given. They're only going to achieve their maximum beauty later,

1125
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:33,840
Speaker 3: and recipients seem to care less about this. Another thing

1126
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 3: the authors found is that a lot of times recipients

1127
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 3: are perfectly happy to get partial contributions toward more highly

1128
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 3: desired products. So I could buy and give you a

1129
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 3: complete fifty dollars dinner plate set, or I could make

1130
01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 3: a fifty dollars contribution toward the cost of a one

1131
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:56,160
Speaker 3: hundred dollars dinner plate set that you definitely do want more.

1132
01:01:56,200 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, if you actually don't like the one

1133
01:01:58,120 --> 01:01:59,920
Speaker 3: hundred dollars one, that doesn't matter. But if you like

1134
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:02,040
Speaker 3: the one hundred dollars one more and that's the one

1135
01:02:02,080 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 3: you want, Recipients are often happy to get this kind

1136
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 3: of incomplete contribution toward a gift, and givers don't really

1137
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:11,480
Speaker 3: expect this.

1138
01:02:12,240 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 2: One of the things this is slightly related. One of

1139
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 2: the things that they went into in the twenty sixteen

1140
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 2: paper is that the givers emphasis on that wow moment,

1141
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:30,520
Speaker 2: that moment of reception, that opening could potentially lead to

1142
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 2: the situation where they take one gift and break it

1143
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 2: up into parts and give it in multiple installments, not

1144
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 2: spread out over multiple years, but certainly like all at once.

1145
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 2: So let's say I am going to give you that

1146
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:45,120
Speaker 2: dinner plate set. I'm going to wrap each piece of

1147
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:49,040
Speaker 2: the dinner plate set individually, and therefore I get instead

1148
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:52,439
Speaker 2: of getting like one rush from you opening the gift,

1149
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:53,880
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get multiple rushes.

1150
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's ten gifts.

1151
01:02:55,400 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but I think you can easily imagine where

1152
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 2: this could become tiresome, depending on if you're artificially breaking

1153
01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:03,760
Speaker 2: things up too much.

1154
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, one more subtopic, getting towards the end. Here,

1155
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 3: they talk about risk aversion. You know, they say givers

1156
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,360
Speaker 3: or risk averse. They often shy away from gifts that

1157
01:03:15,440 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 3: could be perceived as overly sentimental, maybe gifts that assume

1158
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:24,080
Speaker 3: too much familiarity. You know, we're cautious about doing that.

1159
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:26,200
Speaker 3: We don't want to send the wrong message or make

1160
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 3: people feel awkward or embarrassed. People are cautious about giving

1161
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:35,800
Speaker 3: gifts that require too much knowledge of the receiver's personality,

1162
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:40,600
Speaker 3: So givers tend to prefer material gifts that match the

1163
01:03:40,680 --> 01:03:46,360
Speaker 3: receiver's superficial tastes because it just feels less socially dangerous.

1164
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:50,560
Speaker 3: So like, I know you like pizza, so I got

1165
01:03:50,600 --> 01:03:53,680
Speaker 3: you some pizza themed chachkes, you know, some little plastic

1166
01:03:53,720 --> 01:03:56,960
Speaker 3: pizza things. Versus I know you love architecture, so I

1167
01:03:56,960 --> 01:04:01,920
Speaker 3: got you tickets for us to go on an architecture tour. Obviously, again,

1168
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,920
Speaker 3: this is going to vary by the relationship and the

1169
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:09,160
Speaker 3: individual case. But the latter is often preferred. Recipients on

1170
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 3: average report feeling more happiness and more closeness to givers

1171
01:04:13,560 --> 01:04:17,280
Speaker 3: when they receive an experience as opposed to a material gift,

1172
01:04:17,680 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 3: and also when the gift has something includes thoughtfulness of

1173
01:04:21,640 --> 01:04:27,280
Speaker 3: like the recipient's deep personal preferences, when it indicates knowledge

1174
01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 3: of their personality intimately.

1175
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, this makes sense. I think we all know people.

1176
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:35,800
Speaker 2: Maybe we are those people where you've received like one

1177
01:04:36,280 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 2: toy pig or or you know, some sort of maybe

1178
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 2: you have a particular dog breed in your life and

1179
01:04:42,640 --> 01:04:45,080
Speaker 2: someone gives you a nickknack based on that preference, and

1180
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 2: then they just begin to accumulate because that becomes the

1181
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 2: safe thing to give you, oh so and sows into cuttlefish,

1182
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 2: and then all they get are cuttlefish nickknacks.

1183
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 3: Right, So there is a lot of error. There are

1184
01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:58,360
Speaker 3: a lot of errors in gift giving just based on

1185
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:01,080
Speaker 3: risk aversion, givers are more inclin line to pick something

1186
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:05,480
Speaker 3: they think the recipient is highly likely to enjoy a

1187
01:05:05,560 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 3: little bit, as opposed to having less certainty about something

1188
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:12,439
Speaker 3: that the recipient might enjoy a lot.

1189
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 2: And I want to I want to interrupt here and

1190
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:17,240
Speaker 2: just go ahead and let everybody know you're doing fine,

1191
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:18,040
Speaker 2: don't worry.

1192
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 3: Fine, it's because.

1193
01:05:19,560 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 2: You might be thinking, now, geez, I just did this,

1194
01:05:22,240 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 2: and I have to admit, like, I literally just mailed

1195
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:29,560
Speaker 2: a Christmas gift to Joe where I'm like, is that

1196
01:05:29,600 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 2: plastic garbage? Does that? Does that mean nothing? Is that

1197
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:36,080
Speaker 2: an expected choski? Maybe? But it's fine.

1198
01:05:36,440 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 3: I love We've already talked about this earlier. Yeah, I

1199
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:44,240
Speaker 3: mean they're they're great. Yeah. Yeah, Actually I don't think

1200
01:05:44,240 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 3: I've told you about this yet. But a Christmas ornament

1201
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:50,120
Speaker 3: that that y'all send us one year is like a

1202
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 3: little skeleton that goes on the Christmas tree. Our our

1203
01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 3: daughter loves it, you know, she keeps pointing to it.

1204
01:05:56,840 --> 01:06:03,600
Speaker 3: She's like, he's a little skeleton guy dances in Okay,

1205
01:06:03,680 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 3: so oh, one last thing here. In terms of risk aversion,

1206
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 3: givers sometimes seem to prefer giving gifts that are high

1207
01:06:10,680 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 3: in perceived quality and low in quantity as opposed to

1208
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 3: the other way around, mainly due to risk aversion fear

1209
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:20,720
Speaker 3: of being seen as having bad taste. So you get

1210
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:24,280
Speaker 3: somebody one expensive bottle of wine versus two bottles of

1211
01:06:24,360 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 3: cheaper wine. That's not always what the recipient would want.

1212
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:30,880
Speaker 3: Some people might prefer that, but sometimes recipients would prefer

1213
01:06:30,920 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 3: the two bottles, but the giver is afraid of some

1214
01:06:34,040 --> 01:06:36,560
Speaker 3: perceived risk in selecting the cheaper label.

1215
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:39,560
Speaker 2: Okay, so you even give them the smaller nice bottle

1216
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 2: as opposed to the box that they really want.

1217
01:06:42,600 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 3: Well, I mean again, it just depends on the person.

1218
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:47,080
Speaker 3: Like if you know the person's preferences, give them what

1219
01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 3: they want. Here, we're just like looking at averages. So

1220
01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 3: an one last thing here is about thoughtfulness. We talked

1221
01:06:56,800 --> 01:06:59,440
Speaker 3: about thoughtfulness earlier, but it comes back to this distinction

1222
01:06:59,520 --> 01:07:05,840
Speaker 3: between relationship oriented thoughtfulness and non relationship oriented thoughtfulness. Again,

1223
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:11,440
Speaker 3: on average, recipients like relationship oriented thought so like stuff

1224
01:07:11,440 --> 01:07:16,800
Speaker 3: that indicates a strong personal connection that symbolizes the relationship itself,

1225
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:21,040
Speaker 3: or maybe indicates a personal sacrifice of time and effort

1226
01:07:21,160 --> 01:07:23,880
Speaker 3: in like making a handmade gift for someone or something

1227
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:28,439
Speaker 3: like that. So it's like a manifestation of the relationship.

1228
01:07:29,040 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 3: Non relationship oriented thoughtfulness actually leads gift givers astray. It's

1229
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 3: like sending them in the wrong direction. For example, givers

1230
01:07:38,080 --> 01:07:42,600
Speaker 3: tend to prefer more tailored, narrow gifts, like a gift

1231
01:07:42,640 --> 01:07:46,120
Speaker 3: card that can only be used at one particular store,

1232
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 3: where more on average, recipients would prefer more versatile gifts,

1233
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:52,600
Speaker 3: like the gift you know, the credit card kind of

1234
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:54,640
Speaker 3: gift card that you can use basically anywhere.

1235
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:57,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, but who wants to give that like that? Yeah,

1236
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 2: that's the kind of that's that's a great Crims gift

1237
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 2: to receive from your place of employment.

1238
01:08:04,120 --> 01:08:07,280
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, that's That's the other thing the authors

1239
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:12,080
Speaker 3: talk about this cash gifts versus non cash gifts. They say, actually,

1240
01:08:12,200 --> 01:08:15,919
Speaker 3: givers are too pessimistic about giving cash. Obviously, some people

1241
01:08:16,000 --> 01:08:19,120
Speaker 3: are going to be insulted by getting cash, but gift

1242
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:23,920
Speaker 3: givers overestimate how common that reaction is. Givers feel like

1243
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:27,320
Speaker 3: people will not like receiving cash, will not appreciate it,

1244
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:30,920
Speaker 3: But recipients on average like getting cash much more often

1245
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:34,559
Speaker 3: than people expect. People feel like, I don't know, it

1246
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:38,120
Speaker 3: feels like there's something impersonal about a cash gift when

1247
01:08:38,120 --> 01:08:40,799
Speaker 3: you're in the gift giving mode, But it just feels

1248
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:44,479
Speaker 3: less that way for people on average in gift receiving mode.

1249
01:08:45,280 --> 01:08:48,960
Speaker 3: There was an interesting finding from nineteen eighty three about

1250
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:52,360
Speaker 3: this that was a study that found people compensate for

1251
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:57,479
Speaker 3: this anxiety about cash giving cash gifts being taken as

1252
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 3: rude or impersonal. They compensate by giving more cash when

1253
01:09:02,080 --> 01:09:05,280
Speaker 3: they give cash gifts, then they would spend on an

1254
01:09:05,320 --> 01:09:08,479
Speaker 3: in kind gift for the same person and occasion. So

1255
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 3: if I'm buying you a gift, maybe my price limit

1256
01:09:11,400 --> 01:09:14,040
Speaker 3: is forty dollars, But if I'm just giving you cash,

1257
01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:15,600
Speaker 3: I feel kind of bad about it, So I'm going

1258
01:09:15,680 --> 01:09:17,080
Speaker 3: to give you sixty dollars.

1259
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:18,599
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay.

1260
01:09:19,360 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 3: And then one last thing I want to emphasize, because

1261
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:24,760
Speaker 3: they do say this, it is not necessarily a bad

1262
01:09:24,840 --> 01:09:27,759
Speaker 3: idea to get somebody a gift that they have already

1263
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:30,280
Speaker 3: received in the past. Some people might not like that,

1264
01:09:30,720 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 3: but if it's something people like, you know, a lot

1265
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:34,120
Speaker 3: of people want to get it again.

1266
01:09:35,120 --> 01:09:36,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's not going to apply to

1267
01:09:36,720 --> 01:09:40,440
Speaker 2: every category of saying. Obviously, how many copies of Monopoly

1268
01:09:40,520 --> 01:09:43,240
Speaker 2: do you need in your right right? But yeah, it's

1269
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:45,559
Speaker 2: like they receive that same bottle of wine last year. Well,

1270
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:47,320
Speaker 2: as they liked it, there's a good chance they are

1271
01:09:47,320 --> 01:09:49,920
Speaker 2: in need of a new bottle. So yeah, I could

1272
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:51,280
Speaker 2: see that very much being the case.

1273
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:54,080
Speaker 3: Okay, Obviously, this paper gets into a whole bunch of

1274
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:55,439
Speaker 3: other stuff. But I think I'm going to have to

1275
01:09:55,439 --> 01:09:58,040
Speaker 3: cap it there that that's what's most relevant to our

1276
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:00,840
Speaker 3: discussion today. But I do just want want to emphasize

1277
01:10:00,840 --> 01:10:04,240
Speaker 3: again at the end, like the stakes are low in

1278
01:10:04,520 --> 01:10:08,799
Speaker 3: you know, in secure relationships. Uh, it really is mostly

1279
01:10:08,840 --> 01:10:11,639
Speaker 3: the thought that counts. It is nice to get people

1280
01:10:11,640 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 3: gifts that they really will enjoy and use. But but yeah,

1281
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:17,799
Speaker 3: you know, if it's not the perfect gift, and almost

1282
01:10:17,800 --> 01:10:20,960
Speaker 3: nothing is, there's it's not there's not a huge downside

1283
01:10:20,960 --> 01:10:21,679
Speaker 3: most of the time.

1284
01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:24,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you've probably done a great job this season,

1285
01:10:24,720 --> 01:10:26,640
Speaker 2: and you're gonna do a great job next year. But

1286
01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:29,320
Speaker 2: maybe next year you'll be just a little a little

1287
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 2: better by thinking about, you know, at least some of

1288
01:10:32,840 --> 01:10:36,559
Speaker 2: these broad categories we've discussed here. All Right, we're gonna

1289
01:10:36,560 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 2: go ahead and close out this episode of stuff to

1290
01:10:38,320 --> 01:10:41,000
Speaker 2: blow your mind. We'd love to hear from everyone out there,

1291
01:10:41,040 --> 01:10:43,400
Speaker 2: because you know, everyone's gonna have thoughts on this. You're

1292
01:10:43,400 --> 01:10:47,320
Speaker 2: gonna have personal bits of wisdom related to gift giving.

1293
01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 2: You're gonna have some examples of some errors in gift

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Speaker 2: giving that that that you have committed and that others

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Speaker 2: have committed and all that is fair game, so as

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Speaker 2: a right in we'd love to hear from you. Just

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Speaker 2: a reminder to everyone out there, The Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

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Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we put

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Speaker 2: out a short form episode, and on Fridays we set

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Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

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Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.

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Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

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Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

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Speaker 1: at my poet us