WEBVTT - Errors in Gift Giving 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:14.560 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.079 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.279 It is the holidays, and I imagine a lot of 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.640 you out there are in the midst of your gift 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.520 acquisition phase. You are, maybe you're towards the end of it. 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.960 Maybe you think you have everything lined up. Today's episode 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.800 is to help you second guess all of those choices 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.880 and make you wonder, Hey, am I really that good 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:38.360 of a gift giver after all? 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:42.440 Yeah, we were talking before we came on about ways 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.479 to make this not just end up leaving everyone feeling 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.440 guilty and anxious about the gifts that already gotten for people. 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.800 I want to emphasize that gift giving, while there are 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.920 a lot of ways for it to go wrong, it's 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.400 mostly very low stakes. We've all given less than ideals, 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.440 We've always we've all received less than ideal gifts. So 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.160 while I think there's a lot to learn from looking 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.039 at the ways gift giving can go wrong, it's also 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.000 not something to stress out about too much. You know, 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.280 as the saying goes, it's the thought that counts at 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:16.240 least in some ways. 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.400 Well, I always told myself that is the thought that counts. 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:22.800 I have some questions about that logic. We may get into. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.400 But because you do, you get into some of the 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:29.520 papers that have been written about gift giving, and you 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.880 do get the sense that no gift giving is a 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.840 battlefield as well. It is a contest of wills, and 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.560 the stakes could not be any higher. What is on 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:43.080 the line is like the definition of a relationship. What 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.600 if the gift that I give is not equal to 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.400 that which I receive in one way or another, you know, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:56.160 in price, appropriateness, thoughtfulness, practicality, there's so many different qualifiers 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:00.120 that you can employ here. Yeah, every holiday sea And 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.720 I'm reminded of the line from TV's thirty Rock where 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.080 Jack Donaghy's assistant Jonathan tells Les Lemon he's the best 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:09.239 gift giver in the world. I tried once. I bought 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.760 him a ninety five dollars bottle of olive oil. In return, 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:13.880 he got my sister out of in North Korean jail. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:14.840 That's about right. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.920 Yeah, that sums up the stress that you can feel 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.920 going especially going into a first time gift exchange. You know, 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.760 once you've done a few holidays in a row, you 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.760 probably know the deal and it's a lot more late back. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.600 But yeah, it can feel like this. 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:30.720 Yeah. 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.800 Now, I want to stress that there are a lot 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:35.920 of studies about gift giving, and much has been said 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.560 about the practice throughout human history, and one way or another, Aristotle, Confucius, 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.200 many others have reflected on the act of giving. Though 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.080 you'll quickly find that not every nugget of human wisdom 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.840 concerning gifts and giving is easily applied to ritualized holiday 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.120 gift giving, especially in our modern age. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.919 Mm. Yeah, that's right. One of the papers I was 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.360 looking at, though, made an interesting claim, which is that 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.119 they said that gift giving is culturally universal. I really 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.280 briefly went looking to see if I could find a 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.440 counter example of like a culture that does not exchange gifts, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.360 and you know, I didn't do a dissertation or anything, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.480 but I could not find an example. It does seem 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:18.320 that basically everyone everywhere exchanges gifts in some form. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.600 Yeah, I mean, basically it's not even unique to human beings. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.480 This is not really the podcast episode where we're going 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.200 to go into animals giving gifts, but there are numerous 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.200 examples we could turn to and have discussed in the 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.720 show before. Yeah, distinct from human gift giving, but still 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.000 there is this, there is the spirit of it there, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.880 the holiday spirit is present amid the spiders and the 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.760 dogs and so forth. M Yeah, Now, I want to 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.160 stress that we're largely going to be considering the idea 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.960 of gifts given in good faith here sow not just 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:55.480 straight no straight up nasty gifts, gifts of sabotage and 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.520 so forth, but gifts that are given in more or 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.040 less the correct spirit of gift giving. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.280 This is what most of the studies on gift giving 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.320 look into, especially the ones that get into the errors 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.400 in gift giving. There are some distinctions these studies make 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:17.320 between genuinely altruistic motivations for gift giving and then self 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.280 or ego focused motivations for gift giving. But I think 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.040 even the gifts that have some kind of selfish motivation 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.680 behind them, you could still say are mostly given in 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.520 good faith. You're still trying to give a nice gift 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.560 even when there's something for you in the exchange. But 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:36.960 this would be ruling out the kinds of gifts that 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.320 are like purely malicious or pranks or something I remember. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.159 I used to think about how funny it would be 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.080 to show up to Christmas and give the uncle like 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:51.080 a large illegal reptile. They did not ask for unwanted pets. 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.120 That's like the classic malicious gift. 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.680 Yeah, I mean, it's also, as we'll get into, it's 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:59.440 also a classic example of what the giver may think 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.400 of as a great gift, but they're just not thinking 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:02.840 about the practicality of the thing. 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:03.960 Yeah. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.480 So obviously, this still leads plenty of room for disconnect 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.000 between two gift exchangers, between the giver and the receiver 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.800 intentions on one side, reception on the other, with both 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.840 sides going into the scenario with separate and potentially unaligned 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.840 predictions of how the gift will be received based on 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:28.560 simulated simulations formulated via our theory of mind. Because, as 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.920 we've covered on the show before, every relationship in our 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:34.880 life is predicated on a simulation in our own mind 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.000 of what the other's mind state consists of, and it 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.840 might be reasonably accurate. You know that our model reasonably 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.680 approximates the other person's mindset, at least insofar as we 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.840 interact with it. It might be effective for this given relationship, 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:53.080 but it could also be inaccurate in key ways and 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.080 could be detrimental to the relationship in the shorter long 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:56.920 term well. 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.120 And in fact, I would say a lot of times 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:05.520 when gift giving fails, it may come down to the 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.159 recipient of the gift detecting that the gift givers mental 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.800 model of them is not accurate. That makes sense, like 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.960 you know, when a gift is given that the recipient 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.240 thinks you should have known that this is not what 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:22.960 I would have wanted. What they're upset about is not 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.919 just the gift. They're upset about being misunderstood or being 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:29.240 modeled incorrectly. 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.640 Yes, yes, I would agree, and we'll get into some 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.880 more nuanced examples of this as we proceed. Now. I 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.880 do want to point out that some of the sources 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.880 I was looking at painted of what sounded like maybe 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.840 an academically pretty bleak picture of gift giving. There was 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.320 a nineteen ninety three paper I looked at titled The 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.080 Dark Side of the Gift, published in the Journal of 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.720 Business Research by and was authored by Sherry McGrath and Levy, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.320 and it really floored me with a few of these statements. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.679 So I want to read a couple of these quotes, 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.360 and I do apologize that by not actually going into 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.160 their study, these are kind of out of context. So 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.080 give the authors in the original paper the benefit of 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.360 a doubt here, But I shall read gift giving and 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.360 receiving in gender high levels of anxiety among consumers. Gifts 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:25.880 create and exacerbate interpersonal conflict. They were frequently used as weapons, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.760 and consumers' responses to them are carefully canalyzed. 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.880 Now, I was not able to understand what canalyzed means 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:35.840 in this context. I almost wondered if it was a 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.600 typo by the authors. But canalyzed or canalyzed that is 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.320 a word I definitely agree with the first two sentences there. Obviously, 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.120 it's a huge amount of anxiety about gift giving. I 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.880 feel it myself. I love to give a good gift, 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.120 That's one of my favorite things to do. But it 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.480 so rarely happens that I am able to figure out 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:00.600 what that perfect gift is for somebody that I don't know. 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.120 More often, I'm just like really worried and anxious that 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.680 the gifts I'm getting people are not good enough or 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:07.720 not really what they want. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:09.640 Well, yeah, I mean there's a whole discussion that we 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:11.960 had there about the idea of a perfect gift, right, Yeah, 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.800 perfect is always the enemy of done, and you do 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.040 want to get done. You want to be finished with 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.200 your holiday shopping at some point, so we probably shouldn't 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:22.880 put that much pressure on ourselves. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.280 Yeah. Yeah, at the same time that I'm trying to 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.240 put your fears at rest. You know, there's a hypocrisy here, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.400 because I still feel the clinch too, Like, oh no, 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.760 is this am I getting the wrong thing? Is this 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:34.360 actually going to offend somebody? 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:36.800 Well, going back to the dark side of the gift 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.560 for just a second, what could be possibly formed into 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.480 a canal here? I think maybe they're referring to like 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.400 the channeling of the resulting negativity, because their argument here, 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.600 if I'm understanding correctly, and I could be getting it 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:56.400 completely wrong, is that the conflict that is exacerbated by 0:08:56.800 --> 0:08:59.640 the gift giving results in negativity that then has to 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.079 be man aged by both the giver and the recipient. 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:07.240 But quote consumers, victims of sentiment and symbolism are found 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:11.319 to be entrapped in rituals and enjoyed by cultural ideology 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:16.760 from expressing discontent in most ways except fantasy. So It 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.319 really brings the mind to Brian this idea that gift 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.640 giving just causes like this deep dark growth in the 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.560 soul that we just have to like swallow down into 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:31.120 the depths of our beings where it just stagnates and corrupts. Again, 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.280 I'm probably blowing it out of proportion here. 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.520 Oh, I mean the hit. There is a whole other 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.160 question of sometimes when like economists write about gift giving, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.320 there is a negativity in the way they talk about 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.720 it too, because because there are there is a traditional 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.160 view in economics that in a lot of ways gift giving, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.000 especially giving of non cash gifts, like in kind gifts, 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:01.840 that that results in economic inefficiency and way. So the 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.959 idea is, you know, you give somebody something you bought 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.559 for them that you know that they didn't buy themselves. 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.199 That creates waste because people end up getting a lot 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.640 of gifts that they do not want, or maybe it's 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:16.680 a gift that they kind of want, but it's not 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.000 exactly what they would have selected for themselves if they 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:21.920 were going to spend the same amount of money. But 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:26.240 fortunately I was reading about this and economists have sort 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.560 of come back on this a bit. They don't even 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.600 think that gift giving is purely wasteful or inefficient in 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:36.440 economic terms. Clearly, there's a lot of social benefits social 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.640 value added from gift giving, so that's not really in question. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.000 But in terms of just purely economic benefits, there are 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.160 some views that the gift giving can actually increase that too. 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.400 For example, if a material good acquires value to someone 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.520 by virtue of being a gift, so it is now 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.839 worth more to the recipient than the giver paid for it. 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.040 And then there are also these interesting studies that find 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.840 that sometimes gift giving may increase economic value by doing 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:11.880 what they call reducing search costs, essentially by providing people 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.960 with access to goods they find desirable that they would 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.960 not have known about or would not have been able 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.640 to acquire efficiently for themselves. And I was trying to 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.000 think about real life examples of this one that you 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.160 used to figure into my life all the time when 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.760 I was traveling a lot for Christmas, would be people 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:34.640 would give each other gifts of like local specialties from 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.600 their hometowns when they get together for Christmas. So there 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.320 you may actually be adding economic value because it would 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.000 be economically costly and difficult for somebody to go acquire 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:46.760 that local thing themselves. 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:48.280 Okay, that makes sense. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.760 But that being said, there still is a lot of 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.360 economic literature that emphasizes the downsides, the downsides of gift 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.160 giving in terms of inefficiency and waste in the economy. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.480 In fact, one of the papers I was looking at 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.720 so it started by citing an estimate that consumers in 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.560 the United States, just in the United States, spend hundreds 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.160 of billions of dollars on interpersonal gifts each year, and 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:20.480 it flagged an article about holiday gift returns. Now, this 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:22.920 is an older article, so the numbers might be even 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.760 more staggering by now. This is from December twenty fifteen, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.720 published in CNBC by Tom de Christopher. The article is 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.680 called your Holiday returns cost retailers billions, and it says 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.880 that an estimated seventy billion dollars worth of products were 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.040 expected to be returned to sellers around the twenty fifteen 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:49.160 holiday season, according to a logistics and solutions firm called Optro, 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.320 and it talked about how retailers can recoup some of 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:58.320 those costs. They can put items up for resale. Sometimes, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.440 depending on what they are, they can for them at 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.120 a deep discount to liquidators. But a lot of that 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:07.559 value is just gone. It's lost, and the article says 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.760 that in the previous year, Americans returned a total of 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.160 about two hundred and eighty four billion dollars worth of merchandise. 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.400 Somewhere between a quarter to half of that value is 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:23.000 just lost and cannot be recouped by the seller. Another 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.800 estimate given in the article was that overall, sellers expect 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.400 about ten percent of goods to be returned. This obviously 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.679 varies by product sector and the channel of sale. I've 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.720 read some stuff saying that the numbers are probably higher 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.480 now than they were ten years ago, and especially for 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.720 online sales, or there are a lot of returns, but 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.840 either way, beyond the yearly average, there is a surge 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.040 in returns at the end of the year around Christmas time. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.160 According to Optro, about a quarter of all returns for 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.360 the year occur around Christmas. And you can guess that 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.760 a bunch of this comes from unwanted gifts. People getting 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:01.439 a gain. If they don't want they take it back 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:05.959 to the store with a gift receipt and get it exchanged. Now, 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:07.800 on one hand, it might be hard to get too 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.480 broken up about, you know, lost profits for retailers. I 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.240 don't know, do I care if Walmart is losing some 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.400 losing some profit this year, But obviously a lot of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.640 that economic loss is going to get taken out on 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.160 regular people, on low level employees, and on consumers, like sorry, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.760 prices have to go up, no raise this year, et cetera, 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.880 because we lost profits. But apart from the economic losses, 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:32.680 it also creates a huge amount of material waste each year. 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:37.240 So like a returned like new high value object like 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.880 an iPad or something can often be resold for a 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.280 significant fraction of its original value. But a lot of 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.080 products that are returned are not worth the cost of 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.440 putting them through the reverse supply chain, so they just 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.080 go in the trash. And it's kind of sad to 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:51.560 think about. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.200 Oh wow, So it really seems like, on one hand, 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.200 we have an economic responsibility to be better gift givers 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.880 so that you are not certainly so they don't go 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.200 into trash, but also so they don't they're not just 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.640 returned and you know, and they go through this life 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.120 cycle that you've just described. But on the other hand, 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.640 there it does seem like there are certain types of 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:15.600 gifts that would not be purchased if gift givers were 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.800 more thoughtful and intelligent about what they're doing, like and 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.200 and and I say that in you know, half serious. 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.640 I guess on that, especially with kids, there's a lot 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:29.000 of plastic garbage that goes out, and that plastic garbage 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.400 can be pretty joyous in the short term. So I'm 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.520 not saying it's like a complete loss, but at the 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:39.120 end of at the end of the day, sometimes literally 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.400 the end of Christmas Day, but it certainly at the 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:43.720 end the end of the end of the day, it 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:44.840 just becomes garbage. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.600 It's just loss. I mean, I think I had more 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.280 of the plastic garbage view before I became a parent, 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.200 And now my daughter gets so much enjoyment out of 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.040 playing with little pieces of plastic garbage, like she's in 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:01.920 love with somebody of the you know, like a little 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.560 plastic animal or something. So I don't know, it's hard 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.360 for me to demonize those things too much. 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.440 Yeah, I mean, you never know when one will be like, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.000 I have plastic garbage right here on my desk. This 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:14.480 I'm gonna hold this up for you so you can 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.480 see in the camera. Jo, I have no idea where 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.640 this came from. Maybe it's a happy meal toy. I'm 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.040 not sure it's a mummy. It is the very definition 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.560 of plastic garbage. I'm not sure where it came from, 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.440 but for some reason it's treasured, so you never can tell. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.960 All right, Well, let's get a bit into the central 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.160 topic here, errors in gift giving. How things go wrong 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.040 and where they go wrong. So one of the really 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.360 the first paper to catch my eye on this topic 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.200 because we're looking at other holiday possibilities. It was a 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.480 twenty sixteen paper titled why certain gifts are great to 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.760 give but not to get a Framework for Understanding Errors 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.680 and Gift Giving by Gallic Givey and Williams, published in 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.560 the journal Current Directions in Psychological sci. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.800 I love that it introduces the phrase errors in gift 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.679 giving because that's actually it's like a clinical description of 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.680 exactly the phenomenon they're talking about. So it is, it's precise, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.960 it's clear, it's accurate. But it also kind of softens 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.720 the blow of talking about this we were originally thinking about, 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.680 you know, maybe we should talk about bad Christmas gifts. 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.760 But the bad that's such a strong word, and are 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.679 the gifts really bad? I mean, the truth is that 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.080 a lot of gifts. People might appreciate the fact that 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:35.159 the gift was given while also recognizing that there is 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.040 some amount of error in the selection or delivery of 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.200 the gift. Something did not go perfectly right here. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.560 Yeah, I agree, error is the way to go, because 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.680 you can still air in giving a good gift. And 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.080 so I just once more, I just want to assure 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.760 everyone out there, you're doing a great job. Don't worry 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:59.359 about this year's holiday gift giving selections. You did good, 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.000 but maybe take all of this into the next cycle 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:05.920 of gifts that you acquire. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.800 Everybody but me did a great job. I'm still terrified. 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.199 Oh and by the way, since you're mentioning the main 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.040 paper you're drawing from here, I wanted to go ahead 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.600 and flag another the other main source that I want 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:20.960 to draw from in this episode. So this is a 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.440 different paper which is from twenty twenty three. It has 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.600 actually two of the same authors as your twenty sixteen article. 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.960 This one is called an Integrative Review of Gift Giving 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.280 Research and Consumer Behavior and Marketing, published in the Journal 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:39.360 of Consumer Psychology by Julian Givey, Laura Berg, Tina M. Lowry, 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:44.560 and Jeff Gallic Julian Gives of West Virginia University, Laura 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.720 berg Is from the University of Bokum in Germany, Tina 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:52.080 Lowry of h GC Paris, and Jeff Gallic of Carnegie 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:55.480 Mellon And the goal of this paper is to do 0:18:55.600 --> 0:19:00.000 a large systematic review of the academic literature on gift gives, 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:05.040 drawing on a bunch of different disciplines anthropology and sociology, psychology, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.520 and most heavily on business marketing and consumer studies research. 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.000 Sort of a big roundup of what has been studied 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.439 and what have people found out when it comes to 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.600 consumer gifting. Might not come as a surprise that this 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.159 is a topic of immense interest in the field of 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.359 business marketing and consumer studies, because again, gift giving is 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.680 big business. So as you might guess, this paper gets 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:31.920 into a bunch of different subject areas, but I wanted 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:35.119 to mention a couple of sections relevant to our subject today. 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.880 One of them is givers' motivations, so it looks into 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.240 studies on the question why do people give gifts and 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.879 what leads them to select the gifts they do. Another 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.840 section of focus is on givers inputs quote that is, 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.879 whether the thought and money a giver puts into a 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.400 gift is more important to givers or recipients and then 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.920 most important the same subject matter as the earlier twenty 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:09.159 sixteen paper giver recipient mismatches, quote discrepancies between the types 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.400 of gifts given and the types of gifts people prefer 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:16.719 to receive. And I think I should note that most 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.440 of this research tends to be focused on interpersonal consumer 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.879 gift giving, so the exchanging of gifts between regular people. 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.960 It's less relevant to things like gifts in a business context. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.680 You know, you're buying a gift for your client, or 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.040 a free gift with purchase, or a holiday gift from 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.840 employer to employees. So that's its own kind of thing. 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.560 It has different dynamics, you know, obviously different dynamics for 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.800 things like state gifts or forgiving yourself a little gift. 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.320 Oh wow, that last one's probably a topic onto itself, 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.240 because yeah, as we'll be getting into here, much of 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.760 the gift giving is going to depend on two major 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.679 points or more than a really points, I guess, but 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.160 it's going to depend on the moment where the gift 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.639 is given and received and then like the aftermath of it. 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:08.879 But with giving yourself a little gift. There's also the 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:14.160 purchase point, which could be I mean, especially nowadays we're 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:16.159 ordering things online, So it's kind of like you have 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.840 three potential areas to consider, right the moment you buy 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.440 that thing for yourself, the moment you receive that thing 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.320 for yourself, and then the rest of your life with 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.200 that thing. Which is the most exciting? 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:29.719 You know? 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.520 I think the depressing answer, without looking at any literature 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.119 on that particular topic, would be that it's just the 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.160 first thing, that is just the purchase point. 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:41.040 Yeah, that's the most exciting. Okay, Well, do you want 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:43.040 to start by talking about the twenty sixteen paper. 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.320 Yeah? Yeah, So the researchers here begin by acknowledging the 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.440 depth of pre existing research on gift giving and social psychology, 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:52.920 with one of the big take hombs being that most 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.040 of us are not jagnotogy and don't actually excel in 0:21:57.119 --> 0:21:59.960 gift giving, which is to say, if we try it all, 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.119 we're not all that great at predicting the other person's preference. 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.760 This self other mismatch was studied in a key nineteen 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:13.919 ninety seven paper from C. And Weber. Now, my thinking 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:15.800 on all of this, as I got into the sources, 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:17.960 was was, yeah, this seems right. There are so many 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.080 ways to mess up a gift or potentially mess it up. 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.399