Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: It is the holidays, and I imagine a lot of
Speaker 2: you out there are in the midst of your gift
Speaker 2: acquisition phase. You are, maybe you're towards the end of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe you think you have everything lined up. Today's episode
Speaker 2: is to help you second guess all of those choices
Speaker 2: and make you wonder, Hey, am I really that good
Speaker 2: of a gift giver after all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were talking before we came on about ways
Speaker 3: to make this not just end up leaving everyone feeling
Speaker 3: guilty and anxious about the gifts that already gotten for people.
Speaker 3: I want to emphasize that gift giving, while there are
Speaker 3: a lot of ways for it to go wrong, it's
Speaker 3: mostly very low stakes. We've all given less than ideals,
Speaker 3: We've always we've all received less than ideal gifts. So
Speaker 3: while I think there's a lot to learn from looking
Speaker 3: at the ways gift giving can go wrong, it's also
Speaker 3: not something to stress out about too much. You know,
Speaker 3: as the saying goes, it's the thought that counts at
Speaker 3: least in some ways.
Speaker 2: Well, I always told myself that is the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: I have some questions about that logic. We may get into.
Speaker 2: But because you do, you get into some of the
Speaker 2: papers that have been written about gift giving, and you
Speaker 2: do get the sense that no gift giving is a
Speaker 2: battlefield as well. It is a contest of wills, and
Speaker 2: the stakes could not be any higher. What is on
Speaker 2: the line is like the definition of a relationship. What
Speaker 2: if the gift that I give is not equal to
Speaker 2: that which I receive in one way or another, you know,
Speaker 2: in price, appropriateness, thoughtfulness, practicality, there's so many different qualifiers
Speaker 2: that you can employ here. Yeah, every holiday sea And
Speaker 2: I'm reminded of the line from TV's thirty Rock where
Speaker 2: Jack Donaghy's assistant Jonathan tells Les Lemon he's the best
Speaker 2: gift giver in the world. I tried once. I bought
Speaker 2: him a ninety five dollars bottle of olive oil. In return,
Speaker 2: he got my sister out of in North Korean jail.
Speaker 3: That's about right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sums up the stress that you can feel
Speaker 2: going especially going into a first time gift exchange. You know,
Speaker 2: once you've done a few holidays in a row, you
Speaker 2: probably know the deal and it's a lot more late back.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it can feel like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I want to stress that there are a lot
Speaker 2: of studies about gift giving, and much has been said
Speaker 2: about the practice throughout human history, and one way or another, Aristotle, Confucius,
Speaker 2: many others have reflected on the act of giving. Though
Speaker 2: you'll quickly find that not every nugget of human wisdom
Speaker 2: concerning gifts and giving is easily applied to ritualized holiday
Speaker 2: gift giving, especially in our modern age.
Speaker 3: Mm. Yeah, that's right. One of the papers I was
Speaker 3: looking at, though, made an interesting claim, which is that
Speaker 3: they said that gift giving is culturally universal. I really
Speaker 3: briefly went looking to see if I could find a
Speaker 3: counter example of like a culture that does not exchange gifts,
Speaker 3: and you know, I didn't do a dissertation or anything,
Speaker 3: but I could not find an example. It does seem
Speaker 3: that basically everyone everywhere exchanges gifts in some form.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, basically it's not even unique to human beings.
Speaker 2: This is not really the podcast episode where we're going
Speaker 2: to go into animals giving gifts, but there are numerous
Speaker 2: examples we could turn to and have discussed in the
Speaker 2: show before. Yeah, distinct from human gift giving, but still
Speaker 2: there is this, there is the spirit of it there,
Speaker 2: the holiday spirit is present amid the spiders and the
Speaker 2: dogs and so forth. M Yeah, Now, I want to
Speaker 2: stress that we're largely going to be considering the idea
Speaker 2: of gifts given in good faith here sow not just
Speaker 2: straight no straight up nasty gifts, gifts of sabotage and
Speaker 2: so forth, but gifts that are given in more or
Speaker 2: less the correct spirit of gift giving.
Speaker 3: This is what most of the studies on gift giving
Speaker 3: look into, especially the ones that get into the errors
Speaker 3: in gift giving. There are some distinctions these studies make
Speaker 3: between genuinely altruistic motivations for gift giving and then self
Speaker 3: or ego focused motivations for gift giving. But I think
Speaker 3: even the gifts that have some kind of selfish motivation
Speaker 3: behind them, you could still say are mostly given in
Speaker 3: good faith. You're still trying to give a nice gift
Speaker 3: even when there's something for you in the exchange. But
Speaker 3: this would be ruling out the kinds of gifts that
Speaker 3: are like purely malicious or pranks or something I remember.
Speaker 3: I used to think about how funny it would be
Speaker 3: to show up to Christmas and give the uncle like
Speaker 3: a large illegal reptile. They did not ask for unwanted pets.
Speaker 3: That's like the classic malicious gift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's also, as we'll get into, it's
Speaker 2: also a classic example of what the giver may think
Speaker 2: of as a great gift, but they're just not thinking
Speaker 2: about the practicality of the thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So obviously, this still leads plenty of room for disconnect
Speaker 2: between two gift exchangers, between the giver and the receiver
Speaker 2: intentions on one side, reception on the other, with both
Speaker 2: sides going into the scenario with separate and potentially unaligned
Speaker 2: predictions of how the gift will be received based on
Speaker 2: simulated simulations formulated via our theory of mind. Because, as
Speaker 2: we've covered on the show before, every relationship in our
Speaker 2: life is predicated on a simulation in our own mind
Speaker 2: of what the other's mind state consists of, and it
Speaker 2: might be reasonably accurate. You know that our model reasonably
Speaker 2: approximates the other person's mindset, at least insofar as we
Speaker 2: interact with it. It might be effective for this given relationship,
Speaker 2: but it could also be inaccurate in key ways and
Speaker 2: could be detrimental to the relationship in the shorter long
Speaker 2: term well.
Speaker 3: And in fact, I would say a lot of times
Speaker 3: when gift giving fails, it may come down to the
Speaker 3: recipient of the gift detecting that the gift givers mental
Speaker 3: model of them is not accurate. That makes sense, like
Speaker 3: you know, when a gift is given that the recipient
Speaker 3: thinks you should have known that this is not what
Speaker 3: I would have wanted. What they're upset about is not
Speaker 3: just the gift. They're upset about being misunderstood or being
Speaker 3: modeled incorrectly.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I would agree, and we'll get into some
Speaker 2: more nuanced examples of this as we proceed. Now. I
Speaker 2: do want to point out that some of the sources
Speaker 2: I was looking at painted of what sounded like maybe
Speaker 2: an academically pretty bleak picture of gift giving. There was
Speaker 2: a nineteen ninety three paper I looked at titled The
Speaker 2: Dark Side of the Gift, published in the Journal of
Speaker 2: Business Research by and was authored by Sherry McGrath and Levy,
Speaker 2: and it really floored me with a few of these statements.
Speaker 2: So I want to read a couple of these quotes,
Speaker 2: and I do apologize that by not actually going into
Speaker 2: their study, these are kind of out of context. So
Speaker 2: give the authors in the original paper the benefit of
Speaker 2: a doubt here, But I shall read gift giving and
Speaker 2: receiving in gender high levels of anxiety among consumers. Gifts
Speaker 2: create and exacerbate interpersonal conflict. They were frequently used as weapons,
Speaker 2: and consumers' responses to them are carefully canalyzed.
Speaker 3: Now, I was not able to understand what canalyzed means
Speaker 3: in this context. I almost wondered if it was a
Speaker 3: typo by the authors. But canalyzed or canalyzed that is
Speaker 3: a word I definitely agree with the first two sentences there. Obviously,
Speaker 3: it's a huge amount of anxiety about gift giving. I
Speaker 3: feel it myself. I love to give a good gift,
Speaker 3: That's one of my favorite things to do. But it
Speaker 3: so rarely happens that I am able to figure out
Speaker 3: what that perfect gift is for somebody that I don't know.
Speaker 3: More often, I'm just like really worried and anxious that
Speaker 3: the gifts I'm getting people are not good enough or
Speaker 3: not really what they want.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean there's a whole discussion that we
Speaker 2: had there about the idea of a perfect gift, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: perfect is always the enemy of done, and you do
Speaker 2: want to get done. You want to be finished with
Speaker 2: your holiday shopping at some point, so we probably shouldn't
Speaker 2: put that much pressure on ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, at the same time that I'm trying to
Speaker 3: put your fears at rest. You know, there's a hypocrisy here,
Speaker 3: because I still feel the clinch too, Like, oh no,
Speaker 3: is this am I getting the wrong thing? Is this
Speaker 3: actually going to offend somebody?
Speaker 2: Well, going back to the dark side of the gift
Speaker 2: for just a second, what could be possibly formed into
Speaker 2: a canal here? I think maybe they're referring to like
Speaker 2: the channeling of the resulting negativity, because their argument here,
Speaker 2: if I'm understanding correctly, and I could be getting it
Speaker 2: completely wrong, is that the conflict that is exacerbated by
Speaker 2: the gift giving results in negativity that then has to
Speaker 2: be man aged by both the giver and the recipient.
Speaker 2: But quote consumers, victims of sentiment and symbolism are found
Speaker 2: to be entrapped in rituals and enjoyed by cultural ideology
Speaker 2: from expressing discontent in most ways except fantasy. So It
Speaker 2: really brings the mind to Brian this idea that gift
Speaker 2: giving just causes like this deep dark growth in the
Speaker 2: soul that we just have to like swallow down into
Speaker 2: the depths of our beings where it just stagnates and corrupts. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm probably blowing it out of proportion here.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean the hit. There is a whole other
Speaker 3: question of sometimes when like economists write about gift giving,
Speaker 3: there is a negativity in the way they talk about
Speaker 3: it too, because because there are there is a traditional
Speaker 3: view in economics that in a lot of ways gift giving,
Speaker 3: especially giving of non cash gifts, like in kind gifts,
Speaker 3: that that results in economic inefficiency and way. So the
Speaker 3: idea is, you know, you give somebody something you bought
Speaker 3: for them that you know that they didn't buy themselves.
Speaker 3: That creates waste because people end up getting a lot
Speaker 3: of gifts that they do not want, or maybe it's
Speaker 3: a gift that they kind of want, but it's not
Speaker 3: exactly what they would have selected for themselves if they
Speaker 3: were going to spend the same amount of money. But
Speaker 3: fortunately I was reading about this and economists have sort
Speaker 3: of come back on this a bit. They don't even
Speaker 3: think that gift giving is purely wasteful or inefficient in
Speaker 3: economic terms. Clearly, there's a lot of social benefits social
Speaker 3: value added from gift giving, so that's not really in question.
Speaker 3: But in terms of just purely economic benefits, there are
Speaker 3: some views that the gift giving can actually increase that too.
Speaker 3: For example, if a material good acquires value to someone
Speaker 3: by virtue of being a gift, so it is now
Speaker 3: worth more to the recipient than the giver paid for it.
Speaker 3: And then there are also these interesting studies that find
Speaker 3: that sometimes gift giving may increase economic value by doing
Speaker 3: what they call reducing search costs, essentially by providing people
Speaker 3: with access to goods they find desirable that they would
Speaker 3: not have known about or would not have been able
Speaker 3: to acquire efficiently for themselves. And I was trying to
Speaker 3: think about real life examples of this one that you
Speaker 3: used to figure into my life all the time when
Speaker 3: I was traveling a lot for Christmas, would be people
Speaker 3: would give each other gifts of like local specialties from
Speaker 3: their hometowns when they get together for Christmas. So there
Speaker 3: you may actually be adding economic value because it would
Speaker 3: be economically costly and difficult for somebody to go acquire
Speaker 3: that local thing themselves.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: But that being said, there still is a lot of
Speaker 3: economic literature that emphasizes the downsides, the downsides of gift
Speaker 3: giving in terms of inefficiency and waste in the economy.
Speaker 3: In fact, one of the papers I was looking at
Speaker 3: so it started by citing an estimate that consumers in
Speaker 3: the United States, just in the United States, spend hundreds
Speaker 3: of billions of dollars on interpersonal gifts each year, and
Speaker 3: it flagged an article about holiday gift returns. Now, this
Speaker 3: is an older article, so the numbers might be even
Speaker 3: more staggering by now. This is from December twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: published in CNBC by Tom de Christopher. The article is
Speaker 3: called your Holiday returns cost retailers billions, and it says
Speaker 3: that an estimated seventy billion dollars worth of products were
Speaker 3: expected to be returned to sellers around the twenty fifteen
Speaker 3: holiday season, according to a logistics and solutions firm called Optro,
Speaker 3: and it talked about how retailers can recoup some of
Speaker 3: those costs. They can put items up for resale. Sometimes,
Speaker 3: depending on what they are, they can for them at
Speaker 3: a deep discount to liquidators. But a lot of that
Speaker 3: value is just gone. It's lost, and the article says
Speaker 3: that in the previous year, Americans returned a total of
Speaker 3: about two hundred and eighty four billion dollars worth of merchandise.
Speaker 3: Somewhere between a quarter to half of that value is
Speaker 3: just lost and cannot be recouped by the seller. Another
Speaker 3: estimate given in the article was that overall, sellers expect
Speaker 3: about ten percent of goods to be returned. This obviously
Speaker 3: varies by product sector and the channel of sale. I've
Speaker 3: read some stuff saying that the numbers are probably higher
Speaker 3: now than they were ten years ago, and especially for
Speaker 3: online sales, or there are a lot of returns, but
Speaker 3: either way, beyond the yearly average, there is a surge
Speaker 3: in returns at the end of the year around Christmas time.
Speaker 3: According to Optro, about a quarter of all returns for
Speaker 3: the year occur around Christmas. And you can guess that
Speaker 3: a bunch of this comes from unwanted gifts. People getting
Speaker 3: a gain. If they don't want they take it back
Speaker 3: to the store with a gift receipt and get it exchanged. Now,
Speaker 3: on one hand, it might be hard to get too
Speaker 3: broken up about, you know, lost profits for retailers. I
Speaker 3: don't know, do I care if Walmart is losing some
Speaker 3: losing some profit this year, But obviously a lot of
Speaker 3: that economic loss is going to get taken out on
Speaker 3: regular people, on low level employees, and on consumers, like sorry,
Speaker 3: prices have to go up, no raise this year, et cetera,
Speaker 3: because we lost profits. But apart from the economic losses,
Speaker 3: it also creates a huge amount of material waste each year.
Speaker 3: So like a returned like new high value object like
Speaker 3: an iPad or something can often be resold for a
Speaker 3: significant fraction of its original value. But a lot of
Speaker 3: products that are returned are not worth the cost of
Speaker 3: putting them through the reverse supply chain, so they just
Speaker 3: go in the trash. And it's kind of sad to
Speaker 3: think about.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So it really seems like, on one hand,
Speaker 2: we have an economic responsibility to be better gift givers
Speaker 2: so that you are not certainly so they don't go
Speaker 2: into trash, but also so they don't they're not just
Speaker 2: returned and you know, and they go through this life
Speaker 2: cycle that you've just described. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: there it does seem like there are certain types of
Speaker 2: gifts that would not be purchased if gift givers were
Speaker 2: more thoughtful and intelligent about what they're doing, like and
Speaker 2: and and I say that in you know, half serious.
Speaker 2: I guess on that, especially with kids, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of plastic garbage that goes out, and that plastic garbage
Speaker 2: can be pretty joyous in the short term. So I'm
Speaker 2: not saying it's like a complete loss, but at the
Speaker 2: end of at the end of the day, sometimes literally
Speaker 2: the end of Christmas Day, but it certainly at the
Speaker 2: end the end of the end of the day, it
Speaker 2: just becomes garbage.
Speaker 3: It's just loss. I mean, I think I had more
Speaker 3: of the plastic garbage view before I became a parent,
Speaker 3: And now my daughter gets so much enjoyment out of
Speaker 3: playing with little pieces of plastic garbage, like she's in
Speaker 3: love with somebody of the you know, like a little
Speaker 3: plastic animal or something. So I don't know, it's hard
Speaker 3: for me to demonize those things too much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you never know when one will be like,
Speaker 2: I have plastic garbage right here on my desk. This
Speaker 2: I'm gonna hold this up for you so you can
Speaker 2: see in the camera. Jo, I have no idea where
Speaker 2: this came from. Maybe it's a happy meal toy. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it's a mummy. It is the very definition
Speaker 2: of plastic garbage. I'm not sure where it came from,
Speaker 2: but for some reason it's treasured, so you never can tell.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's get a bit into the central
Speaker 2: topic here, errors in gift giving. How things go wrong
Speaker 2: and where they go wrong. So one of the really
Speaker 2: the first paper to catch my eye on this topic
Speaker 2: because we're looking at other holiday possibilities. It was a
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen paper titled why certain gifts are great to
Speaker 2: give but not to get a Framework for Understanding Errors
Speaker 2: and Gift Giving by Gallic Givey and Williams, published in
Speaker 2: the journal Current Directions in Psychological sci.
Speaker 3: I love that it introduces the phrase errors in gift
Speaker 3: giving because that's actually it's like a clinical description of
Speaker 3: exactly the phenomenon they're talking about. So it is, it's precise,
Speaker 3: it's clear, it's accurate. But it also kind of softens
Speaker 3: the blow of talking about this we were originally thinking about,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe we should talk about bad Christmas gifts.
Speaker 3: But the bad that's such a strong word, and are
Speaker 3: the gifts really bad? I mean, the truth is that
Speaker 3: a lot of gifts. People might appreciate the fact that
Speaker 3: the gift was given while also recognizing that there is
Speaker 3: some amount of error in the selection or delivery of
Speaker 3: the gift. Something did not go perfectly right here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, error is the way to go, because
Speaker 2: you can still air in giving a good gift. And
Speaker 2: so I just once more, I just want to assure
Speaker 2: everyone out there, you're doing a great job. Don't worry
Speaker 2: about this year's holiday gift giving selections. You did good,
Speaker 2: but maybe take all of this into the next cycle
Speaker 2: of gifts that you acquire.
Speaker 3: Everybody but me did a great job. I'm still terrified.
Speaker 3: Oh and by the way, since you're mentioning the main
Speaker 3: paper you're drawing from here, I wanted to go ahead
Speaker 3: and flag another the other main source that I want
Speaker 3: to draw from in this episode. So this is a
Speaker 3: different paper which is from twenty twenty three. It has
Speaker 3: actually two of the same authors as your twenty sixteen article.
Speaker 3: This one is called an Integrative Review of Gift Giving
Speaker 3: Research and Consumer Behavior and Marketing, published in the Journal
Speaker 3: of Consumer Psychology by Julian Givey, Laura Berg, Tina M. Lowry,
Speaker 3: and Jeff Gallic Julian Gives of West Virginia University, Laura
Speaker 3: berg Is from the University of Bokum in Germany, Tina
Speaker 3: Lowry of h GC Paris, and Jeff Gallic of Carnegie
Speaker 3: Mellon And the goal of this paper is to do
Speaker 3: a large systematic review of the academic literature on gift gives,
Speaker 3: drawing on a bunch of different disciplines anthropology and sociology, psychology,
Speaker 3: and most heavily on business marketing and consumer studies research.
Speaker 3: Sort of a big roundup of what has been studied
Speaker 3: and what have people found out when it comes to
Speaker 3: consumer gifting. Might not come as a surprise that this
Speaker 3: is a topic of immense interest in the field of
Speaker 3: business marketing and consumer studies, because again, gift giving is
Speaker 3: big business. So as you might guess, this paper gets
Speaker 3: into a bunch of different subject areas, but I wanted
Speaker 3: to mention a couple of sections relevant to our subject today.
Speaker 3: One of them is givers' motivations, so it looks into
Speaker 3: studies on the question why do people give gifts and
Speaker 3: what leads them to select the gifts they do. Another
Speaker 3: section of focus is on givers inputs quote that is,
Speaker 3: whether the thought and money a giver puts into a
Speaker 3: gift is more important to givers or recipients and then
Speaker 3: most important the same subject matter as the earlier twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen paper giver recipient mismatches, quote discrepancies between the types
Speaker 3: of gifts given and the types of gifts people prefer
Speaker 3: to receive. And I think I should note that most
Speaker 3: of this research tends to be focused on interpersonal consumer
Speaker 3: gift giving, so the exchanging of gifts between regular people.
Speaker 3: It's less relevant to things like gifts in a business context.
Speaker 3: You know, you're buying a gift for your client, or
Speaker 3: a free gift with purchase, or a holiday gift from
Speaker 3: employer to employees. So that's its own kind of thing.
Speaker 3: It has different dynamics, you know, obviously different dynamics for
Speaker 3: things like state gifts or forgiving yourself a little gift.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that last one's probably a topic onto itself,
Speaker 2: because yeah, as we'll be getting into here, much of
Speaker 2: the gift giving is going to depend on two major
Speaker 2: points or more than a really points, I guess, but
Speaker 2: it's going to depend on the moment where the gift
Speaker 2: is given and received and then like the aftermath of it.
Speaker 2: But with giving yourself a little gift. There's also the
Speaker 2: purchase point, which could be I mean, especially nowadays we're
Speaker 2: ordering things online, So it's kind of like you have
Speaker 2: three potential areas to consider, right the moment you buy
Speaker 2: that thing for yourself, the moment you receive that thing
Speaker 2: for yourself, and then the rest of your life with
Speaker 2: that thing. Which is the most exciting?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I think the depressing answer, without looking at any literature
Speaker 2: on that particular topic, would be that it's just the
Speaker 2: first thing, that is just the purchase point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the most exciting. Okay, Well, do you want
Speaker 3: to start by talking about the twenty sixteen paper.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So the researchers here begin by acknowledging the
Speaker 2: depth of pre existing research on gift giving and social psychology,
Speaker 2: with one of the big take hombs being that most
Speaker 2: of us are not jagnotogy and don't actually excel in
Speaker 2: gift giving, which is to say, if we try it all,
Speaker 2: we're not all that great at predicting the other person's preference.
Speaker 2: This self other mismatch was studied in a key nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven paper from C. And Weber. Now, my thinking
Speaker 2: on all of this, as I got into the sources,
Speaker 2: was was, yeah, this seems right. There are so many
Speaker 2: ways to mess up a gift or potentially mess it up.
Speaker 2: And again I'm not getting into the actual bad gift giving,
Speaker 2: but errors in gift giving, ways that you could ways
Speaker 2: you could have done better in retrospect. Now, it was
Speaker 2: interesting to jump into this paper again mostly having done
Speaker 2: all of my holiday shopping but then second guessing everything
Speaker 2: and also just reflecting on my own life as a
Speaker 2: gift giver, because I think, for the most part I've
Speaker 2: really leaned on that it's the thought that counts, even
Speaker 2: if I'm being fairly self judgmental and asking myself how
Speaker 2: much thought did I really put into any of those
Speaker 2: gifts where it was the thought that counts. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think we have to acknowledge too that now, especially
Speaker 2: with the use of Amazon wish lists and so forth,
Speaker 2: it takes a lot of the guesswork as well as
Speaker 2: the skill and the personal touch out of gift giving.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, it becomes harder for me to think, oh,
Speaker 2: it's the thought that counts if all I'm doing is
Speaker 2: thinking about putting your Amazon wishless link into the browser
Speaker 2: and then picking something and it even makes sure that
Speaker 2: it hasn't been purchased already, so it takes the guesswork
Speaker 2: out of it.
Speaker 3: Well, Rob, I don't know if your sources mentioned this
Speaker 3: as much, but fortunately the research that I was looking
Speaker 3: at indicates that you shouldn't be worried about that kind
Speaker 3: of thought as much. That matters to recipients far less
Speaker 3: than people think they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do get into that a little bit. That
Speaker 2: is part of the mismatch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are different kinds of ways that thought can count,
Speaker 3: and specifically the brainstorming original ideas and searching around for
Speaker 3: the perfect gift that matters more in the minds of
Speaker 3: gift givers than in the minds of gift receivers. Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yes, so in the paper gallic at All stress that quote.
Speaker 2: There can be major consequences for giving ill chosen gifts,
Speaker 2: and that is explored in a couple of cited papers.
Speaker 2: A poorly chosen gift can annoy or even drive a
Speaker 2: wedge between the two people in the relationship. Again, everyone
Speaker 2: out there, you're doing fine. Don't worry about this too much.
Speaker 2: But yeah, on one level, it does sound pretty pretty extreme,
Speaker 2: and I don't think we should lose too much sleep
Speaker 2: over it. But I think we can all imagine if
Speaker 2: we're spiraling and we're using worst case scenarios, we can
Speaker 2: imagine the sort of gift, bad gift we might receive
Speaker 2: that might make us ask questions about the other person
Speaker 2: and our relationship with them. Do they truly understand this?
Speaker 2: That would make you feel less seen by the giver?
Speaker 2: Like if I were to receive a Beef Jerky of
Speaker 2: the Month club membership in the Jason Statham sixth Film
Speaker 2: collection on Blu Ray, I would wonder if this person
Speaker 2: truly knows me, or if they do know me? Like,
Speaker 2: what are they trying to say with this, with these
Speaker 2: these strangely chosen items?
Speaker 3: Well, I know you're not a beef guy, but I
Speaker 3: don't know, Rob. I feel like I know you pretty well,
Speaker 3: and I I would have put it fifty to fifty
Speaker 3: that you would be into the Jason Stathum. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't I mean say, I mean, I'm down for
Speaker 2: a deluxe Blu Ray of Ghost of Mars okay, but
Speaker 2: but I'm just saying it would it would? It would
Speaker 2: make me wonder, It's like, why did they go for that?
Speaker 3: Can I just feel in a random thing that I
Speaker 3: was trying to think of an overly specific gift earlier,
Speaker 3: like a thing that you would receive and you'd be like,
Speaker 3: why did they get me this? And for some reason,
Speaker 3: the object that popped into my mind is a velvet football. Ooh,
Speaker 3: what is that? I don't know. It came from deep
Speaker 3: in the void.
Speaker 2: It does sound useless but also luxurious. So yes, it's
Speaker 2: a perfect.
Speaker 3: Gift, like expensive, but you can't use it and I
Speaker 3: don't really I don't like football and I don't have
Speaker 3: anything velvet. So why did I get this? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh, I have a bad gift for you. This one
Speaker 2: is based on true stories. I'm combining them into a
Speaker 2: single gift. But you open the box and it contains
Speaker 2: a chick track warning you about how dangerous dungeons and
Speaker 2: Dragons is to your soul. I want half of a
Speaker 2: jog suit. You will receive the other half of the
Speaker 2: jogsuit the following Christmas as a separate gift, and the
Speaker 2: two the up the bottom of the top will never
Speaker 2: match because one will have had a year's worth of
Speaker 2: fading if you wear it.
Speaker 3: Oh amazing, it was that done maliciously or just I
Speaker 3: don't know half of the tracks.
Speaker 2: I don't know that, I don't know why it happened,
Speaker 2: but based on a true story.
Speaker 3: Well, I've got some interesting feedback on that one later on,
Speaker 3: because there's at least some research showing that incomplete gifts
Speaker 3: are not always unwelcome.
Speaker 2: M Okay, all right, yeah, I have about incomplete Well,
Speaker 2: I have a bit about gifts that are perhaps artificially
Speaker 2: divvied up into multiple gifts. But I don't think they
Speaker 2: were talking about from Christmas to Christmas?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Now, the paper refers to many of the ways that
Speaker 2: gift giving can err, the various errors that you might
Speaker 2: commit in giving a gift. They involve such questions as as,
Speaker 2: what if the gift you give is too expensive or
Speaker 2: too cheap, what if the gift isn't desirable on one
Speaker 2: level or another, What if the gift isn't feasible again
Speaker 2: on one level or another. What if it's too material,
Speaker 2: what if it's too intangible? What if it's not thoughtful enough?
Speaker 2: What if it's too traditional? What if it's not traditional enough?
Speaker 2: And then you might even ask yourself, is it socially responsible?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Have I made a socially responsible choice in picking out
Speaker 2: this gift for the other person. And naturally, I, like
Speaker 2: most of you, have seen enough Christmas media in my
Speaker 2: time to add some additional ways that it can go wrong.
Speaker 2: What if the gift you're giving bears the same telltale
Speaker 2: L shaped boxes all the other gifts that the recipient
Speaker 2: received this year?
Speaker 3: Oh is that? What is the L shaped box? The
Speaker 3: specific thing?
Speaker 2: That's just a moment in Christmas vacation. He's given the
Speaker 2: gift to his boss and there are all these gifts
Speaker 2: in the background, and they're all the exact same shape.
Speaker 2: You've made some sort of air because he's getting a
Speaker 2: lot of whatever that is.
Speaker 3: Well, I have a very specific story like that in
Speaker 3: my family, which is a couple of years ago. My
Speaker 3: father in law and I both got my mother in
Speaker 3: law the same gift for Christmas, and it was a
Speaker 3: very specific gift. It was, if you can believe it,
Speaker 3: we both got her a like an aquamarine or I
Speaker 3: don't know, my colors like teal a teal ukulele.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yes, yeah, you can't use two of those, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not a musician, but not without some
Speaker 2: exceptional toast skill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really couldn't believe it happened, but it did.
Speaker 2: All right, here's some more. What if the gift you're
Speaker 2: giving is in fact your own cat wrapped up in
Speaker 2: a box. That also occurs in Christmas vacation. Does my
Speaker 2: gift involve felony kidnapping? That's another one from that film.
Speaker 2: What if the recipient sold all of their hair to
Speaker 2: buy your gift, and now your hair care related gift
Speaker 2: is useless, at least in the short term.
Speaker 3: I don't recognize where that's from either.
Speaker 2: Then the gift of the magi, right, Oh okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's one of those depending on what side
Speaker 2: of the gift of the Magi you're on. It's like
Speaker 2: the hair will grow back. I don't know about the
Speaker 2: time piece, right. What if the recipient is much too
Speaker 2: old for the pjs you sent. We're all familiar with
Speaker 2: that one. What if the gift is in fact a
Speaker 2: high maintenance supernatural pet that will reproduce and mutate into
Speaker 2: destructive monsters if not cared for properly.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, your classic Grimlin problem.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'm going to come back to that one
Speaker 2: as a prime example. And then, of course, are my
Speaker 2: gifts magical rings that will bend nations to my will.
Speaker 2: That's more in well in the category though of malicious gifts,
Speaker 2: though as opposed to any kind of good natured gift giving.
Speaker 3: Seems great at first, but the preciousness takes on a
Speaker 3: really nasty quality over time.
Speaker 2: That's right, So whether we're dealing with real or fictional gifts.
Speaker 2: The authors drive home that everyone in the scenario is
Speaker 2: trying to give a good gift. After all, no one
Speaker 2: wants to be thought of as a lousy gift giver.
Speaker 2: There's a basic social contract involved in all of this,
Speaker 2: and we try to hit at least our criteria for
Speaker 2: a good gift, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it
Speaker 2: fits their criteria for a good gift as well. And
Speaker 2: in this they present a possible unifying explanation of why
Speaker 2: errors in gift giving occur.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: We propose that many giver recipient discrepancies can be at
Speaker 2: least partially explained by the notion that when evaluating the
Speaker 2: quality of a gift, givers primarily focus on the moment
Speaker 2: of the exchange, where recipients instead mostly focus on how
Speaker 2: valuable a gift will be throughout their ownership of it.
Speaker 2: Givers and receivers have different perspectives on what makes a
Speaker 2: gift valuable. Givers interpret that to mean that the gift
Speaker 2: will make the recipient feel delighted, impressed, surprised, and or
Speaker 2: touched when he or she receives and opens it, whereas
Speaker 2: recipients find value in factors that allow them to better
Speaker 2: utilize and enjoy a gift during their subsequent ownership of it.
Speaker 3: This is a major theme in the twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: paper as well. One of the main reasons they identify
Speaker 3: for gift giving going wrong is that givers focus on
Speaker 3: the moment they're opening the gift. They want it to
Speaker 3: be delightful in that moment, whereas recipients value much more
Speaker 3: gifts that continue to delight or or provide use for
Speaker 3: them over time. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: They also summarize this as coming down to quote giver
Speaker 2: recipient asymmetries and evaluations of particular aspects of the gift,
Speaker 2: aspects of the giver or aspects of the recipient. And
Speaker 2: so my mind instantly went to Grimlins and all of this,
Speaker 2: then to practical real world examples, but then back to Grimlins.
Speaker 2: So that's where I'm going to stay for a minute.
Speaker 2: If you're familiar with the classic holiday horror comedy film.
Speaker 2: When Peter's dad Randall buys the Magua Gizmo or the
Speaker 2: Magua that will be renamed Gizmo from mister Wing's store
Speaker 2: in Chinatown, he wasn't thinking about the long term challenges
Speaker 2: of owning an exotic, supernatural cynia pet. He was thinking
Speaker 2: about that moment of exchange. And it is a memorable
Speaker 2: moment in the film. I mean, you can look it up,
Speaker 2: there are clips of it online. But when Billy meets
Speaker 2: Gizmo for the first time, it's cute and everybody loves it.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's hard to say no to Gizmo exactly,
Speaker 3: even I know all the dangers, and if I received Gizmo,
Speaker 3: I would still want to give him a big hug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is something to keep in mind. The
Speaker 2: gift of the magua here in Grimlins is successful. Billy
Speaker 2: is enraptured. Billy's dad, of course, is eating it up
Speaker 2: because he's given what seems to be a great gift.
Speaker 2: Mom even the dog agree that this Gizmo chap is wonderful.
Speaker 2: If they had any clue what they were getting into
Speaker 2: and what the rest of the movie and the sequel
Speaker 2: is going to consist of gift ownership, then they surely
Speaker 2: see that this is a prime error in gift giving.
Speaker 2: He has given Billy a gift that is going to
Speaker 2: be arduous to own. It's gonna, in the best cases,
Speaker 2: it's going to involve a lot of upkeep, and it's
Speaker 2: also it's going to get a number of people killed,
Speaker 2: at least in the first movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if your gift will wheel a chainsaw against you,
Speaker 3: I think that probably counts as an error.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If it will potentially bring about the downfall of
Speaker 2: New York City and can only be stopped, you know,
Speaker 2: via some last minute heroics, then yeah, it might have
Speaker 2: been an error. So the authors of the twenty sixteen paper,
Speaker 2: they described that the attributes of a good gift basically
Speaker 2: break down as follows. The gifts should be the gift
Speaker 2: should be desirable, it should be surprising, and it should
Speaker 2: symbolize the giver recipient relationship. And I would argue that
Speaker 2: the gizmo does seem to check off these boxes. Gizmo
Speaker 2: is desirable, he's certainly surprising, and the gift does seem
Speaker 2: to on some levels symbolize the inventive nurturing relationship between
Speaker 2: Billy and his father.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way it symbolizes the giver recipient relationship. In
Speaker 3: some of the literature, this is called this is a
Speaker 3: type of thoughtfulness when we say the thought counts and
Speaker 3: giving a gift. This is relationship oriented thoughtfulness, as opposed
Speaker 3: to the non relationship oriented thoughtfulness, which is just like
Speaker 3: the giver spending a lot of time and effort like
Speaker 3: brainstorming a gift. But the gift might not actually, you know,
Speaker 3: be a result of a personal sacrifice that you know
Speaker 3: that shows how much the person loves you, or might
Speaker 3: not have something to do with the relationship between the
Speaker 3: giver and the recipient.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there can be a lot of asymmetry there between
Speaker 2: how much thought you're putting into it, how much thought
Speaker 2: you expect other people to interpret in your gift giving,
Speaker 2: and so forth. And you can imagine the asymmetry going
Speaker 2: the other direction too, Like you imagine a scenario where
Speaker 2: someone's just like, yeah, I give lacy underwear to everybody
Speaker 2: for Christmas, and people who are on the receiving end
Speaker 2: of this, they might they might judge it to have
Speaker 2: veered over into inappropriateness, saying like, what are you trying
Speaker 2: to say about our relationship. We don't really have a
Speaker 2: lacy underwear holiday gift giving relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is one of the risks inherent in
Speaker 3: all gift giving is that an inappropriate gift of some
Speaker 3: sort will be interpreted as an incorrect interpretation of the relationship.
Speaker 2: The twenty sixteen paper Galic at All include an entire
Speaker 2: chart about errors in gift giving, presenting first a gift
Speaker 2: giving rule. You know, one of these, like gifts should
Speaker 2: be this or that, How the giver and receiver may
Speaker 2: differ on the definition and the gift exchange thought process.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to go through all of it.
Speaker 2: You can look up this paper online. It's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's a fun paper to roll through.
Speaker 2: But as an example, here's one of the categories gift
Speaker 2: giving rule. Gifts should surprise the recipients giver preference unrequested
Speaker 2: gifts receiver preference requested gifts giver thought process. Unrequested gifts
Speaker 2: will surprise receiver thought process. Personally requested gifts are more valuable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this lines up with some of the
Speaker 3: stuff that I was reading that it's not that a
Speaker 3: surprise gift is without value to a recipient. Clearly, surprised
Speaker 3: does bring some value with it, but it seems that
Speaker 3: givers care more about the gift being a surprise than
Speaker 3: recipients do. Recipients on average, like to receive things that
Speaker 3: they have explicitly asked for, and sometimes are unhappy if
Speaker 3: they explicitly ask for something and get something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you gave me a magua, but I
Speaker 2: need more socks. I had a plan for socks. Now
Speaker 2: I have to make a plan for a magwa.
Speaker 3: From what I'm reading, it seems that the place where
Speaker 3: a surprise is really delightful to the recipient is not
Speaker 3: in what they get, but in getting a gift on
Speaker 3: an unexpected occasion. So gifts that are not associated with
Speaker 3: a normal gift giving holiday or an expectation that a
Speaker 3: gift is incoming a gift that's just unexpected and out
Speaker 3: of the blue. On average, those are ranked as more
Speaker 3: delightful and exciting to recipients than gifts that come at
Speaker 3: a time of gift obligation.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. The authors argue that a lot of errors
Speaker 2: in gift giving come down to conflict between the givers
Speaker 2: desire to dazzle in the moment of gift giving, you know,
Speaker 2: the opening of the gift, if you will, the unwrapping,
Speaker 2: and then the experience of owning said gift on the
Speaker 2: part of the recipient. And one example that instantly came
Speaker 2: to my mind to draw from The Simpsons is when
Speaker 2: mister Burns gives the Simpsons family a giant stone head
Speaker 2: that is just comically large. It fills up their entire
Speaker 2: living room. Mister Burns clearly is all about dazzling and
Speaker 2: making a big show of things here. He has not
Speaker 2: given any thought to like, where are they going to
Speaker 2: put this head? You know, how are they going to
Speaker 2: transport it into the basement for the rest of the
Speaker 2: series and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and often we see it again down in the basement,
Speaker 3: like behind a bunch of junk when in later episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like how they keep coming back to it.
Speaker 2: So the authors drive home that in making this sort
Speaker 2: of error again, an error where the giver is focusing
Speaker 2: on the moment of the giving as opposed to the
Speaker 2: ownership of the gift. The error could hypothetically occur due
Speaker 2: to three different methods. Three different things could be going on.
Speaker 2: One is that the giver might truly believe that the
Speaker 2: recipient will place more value on the wow moment of
Speaker 2: giving or opening. And I think that is understandable. It's
Speaker 2: a very understandable error to make. I've probably made that
Speaker 2: error all the time as well. And part of it,
Speaker 2: I think is because there is so much media attention
Speaker 2: tied to such a moment. A lot of our memories
Speaker 2: as givers are tied to those moments because a lot
Speaker 2: of times we don't see ownership of a gift unless
Speaker 2: it's even if it's an immediate family member. You don't
Speaker 2: necessarily you're not going to keep checking in and observing
Speaker 2: the life of that gift, and that individual's actions and
Speaker 2: experiences and recipient excitement can be very satisfying. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's no denying totally, all right. The second possibility is
Speaker 2: the giver realizes that they should be focusing more on
Speaker 2: the ownership of the gift versus that wow moment of giving,
Speaker 2: but they do it anyway for selfish reasons. They just
Speaker 2: want to create that moment. And as the authors get
Speaker 2: into elsewhere in the paper, if there's a performance aspect
Speaker 2: of it to the whole thing, If they're giving the
Speaker 2: gift in front of others, that could be the sort
Speaker 2: of thing that sort of corrupts the moment as well.
Speaker 2: And then it's also the third possibility is they're simply
Speaker 2: so focused on the moment of giving that they just
Speaker 2: fail to consider other factors. And I think that's very
Speaker 2: reasonable as well. How often are we just super hyper
Speaker 2: focused on one particular gift in one particular recipient, Especially
Speaker 2: around the holidays, we're giving multiple gifts, We're trying to
Speaker 2: check off a number of boxes, and we may just
Speaker 2: not consider the life of the gift for that individual,
Speaker 2: and we might just lean like I have many times,
Speaker 2: on the idea that it's the thought that counts and
Speaker 2: if they don't like it, and they might not like it,
Speaker 2: they can return it. And the very least I've given
Speaker 2: them a very elaborate gift card with extra work involved. Now,
Speaker 2: how do you give better gifts? On all of this?
Speaker 2: They drive from that. The big answer here, whenever possible,
Speaker 2: is just to think as a gift giver, not just
Speaker 2: about that that opening of the gift, that that giving
Speaker 2: of the gift and the receipt of the gift, but
Speaker 2: also the ownership of the gift to whatever degree you can.
Speaker 2: And obviously a number of factors are going to influence
Speaker 2: the process, including well, you know about the other person
Speaker 2: and the details of your relationship. But it sounds like
Speaker 2: a good rule of thumb, you know, to whatever degree possible.
Speaker 2: You know, you're thinking about the person opening the gift,
Speaker 2: think about the week that follows, think about the month
Speaker 2: the month that follows. What is ownership of that item
Speaker 2: going to look like? M Yeah, but I have to admit, like,
Speaker 2: that's not a super fun consideration. It's far more fun.
Speaker 2: It's far more exciting to just think about them opening
Speaker 2: the box or you know, pulling things out of the
Speaker 2: stocking on Christmas morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I can't deny the appeal of that
Speaker 3: moment of delight when opening a gift. But I don't know,
Speaker 3: I can see the I feel like I get a
Speaker 3: sense of pleasure thinking about people using a gift over
Speaker 3: time that I gave them. That that consistently brings me
Speaker 3: a kind of warm glow, which is one of the
Speaker 3: self focused reasons we give gifts. In fact, would this
Speaker 3: be a good reason or not a good reason? A
Speaker 3: good time then to talk about the motives of gift
Speaker 3: givers and gift selection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into the motives of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, so this is a big thing that the authors
Speaker 3: of this later twenty twenty three paper talk about. You know.
Speaker 3: They say, when you look at the motives of gift givers,
Speaker 3: you can ask this question two different ways. One is
Speaker 3: why are you giving a gift? The other is why
Speaker 3: did you pick this gift? And they say that the
Speaker 3: research really reveals four overarching themes and the motivations for
Speaker 3: giving a gift, which the authors call altruism, egoism, social
Speaker 3: norm compliance, and diaddic benefits. So altruism, that's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 3: That's like the most pure kind of gift giving thing
Speaker 3: you can do. It's a desire to bring happiness or
Speaker 3: provide utility for the person you're giving the gift too,
Speaker 3: no ulterior motive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just pure sanit territory right here. This
Speaker 2: is why the big guy does.
Speaker 3: It right now. It's impossible to ever completely rule out
Speaker 3: that people could have secret ulterior motives for doing nice
Speaker 3: things for others, but I think we can assume that,
Speaker 3: at least consciously, people really do sometimes give gifts because
Speaker 3: they just want to delight or benefit the recipient. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but the other side of the coin is egoism. We've
Speaker 3: already touched on a few of these motivations, but there
Speaker 3: are reasons for giving gifts and for selecting certain gifts
Speaker 3: that benefit the gift giver. So how would giving benefit
Speaker 3: the gift giver? One idea is by encouraging reciprocity. A
Speaker 3: gift given to elicit something of value being given in return,
Speaker 3: maybe to make somebody give you gifts back. A gift
Speaker 3: given to create positive emotions in the gift giver, like
Speaker 3: that warm glow. You know, we get something out of
Speaker 3: it too. It feels nice to have somebody open a
Speaker 3: gift and be delighted. A gift given to earn social
Speaker 3: approval or status, This one feels a little more Mockavellian.
Speaker 3: Sometimes giving a really nice gift is sort of like
Speaker 3: a way of bragging, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, this we might we might be getting into
Speaker 2: Jack donaghy territory. You know, the power play of the
Speaker 2: exact lift. Yeah, you've dominated your opponent by giving them
Speaker 2: a gift far more perfect than anything they could possibly return.
Speaker 3: Well, I think about in Mafia movies, you know, in
Speaker 3: Good Fellas, when he's going into the club giving everybody
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars. Tip Is that because he's actually really
Speaker 3: generous and he wants to benefit their lives? Or is
Speaker 3: it because he's showing off how wealthy and powerful he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I can give this kind of thoughtless gift.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then there's another thing that the authors call
Speaker 3: internalizing external effects. This is giving a gift that, through
Speaker 3: its consumption by the recipient, actually provides benefit to the
Speaker 3: gift giver. So an example here would be my wife
Speaker 3: gets me cooking equipment that I am going to use
Speaker 3: to make food for her, you know, And I'm not,
Speaker 3: you know, impugning that. I think that's great. I love
Speaker 3: getting new cooking equipment. But we both benefit, you know.
Speaker 3: I get to use this thing. Also she's going to
Speaker 3: get to eat the delicious meals that I make with it.
Speaker 3: I think a very common one here is like romantic
Speaker 3: couples getting each other clothes or perfume or cologne or
Speaker 3: something that they would personally enjoy their partner wearing, you know,
Speaker 3: or you know, you can frame this in a positive
Speaker 3: way or in a negative way, like I'm going to
Speaker 3: get my husband a new jacket so he stops wearing
Speaker 3: that embarrassing ratty old one.
Speaker 2: Mm. Yeah, and unless you get into the like the
Speaker 2: delicate details of the gift giving between two you know,
Speaker 2: very well known participants, Yeah, they're going to know how
Speaker 2: to walk that line right hopefully.
Speaker 3: So those are altruism and egoism. There are a couple
Speaker 3: other things. One is social norm compliance. It's like, we
Speaker 3: got new neighbors, We're going over to say hi, aren't
Speaker 3: you supposed to bring a gift? I feel like we're
Speaker 3: not supposed to go without a gift, So let's put
Speaker 3: a bow on this bottle of wine we didn't open yet.
Speaker 3: This is a case where you have no strong, independent
Speaker 3: desire to give a gift, but you just give one
Speaker 3: out of social expectation. You feel like you have to
Speaker 3: do it because of the occasion or the relationship. And
Speaker 3: here a common emotional motivation forgiving the gift is to
Speaker 3: avoid feelings of guilt or to avoid feelings of shame
Speaker 3: or embarrassment just for failing to give a gift in
Speaker 3: the situation where it would be expected. Yeah. And then finally,
Speaker 3: this one I thought was really interesting. This is the
Speaker 3: motivation they call diadic benefits. Some research highlights how gift
Speaker 3: giving sometimes is motivated by a desire to benefit all
Speaker 3: parties within a relationship, sometimes with reference to effects on
Speaker 3: the relationship itself. So these would be gifts that establish
Speaker 3: a sense of togetherness, like when you know, you give
Speaker 3: a family member a framed photo of the family altogether,
Speaker 3: or you get something that the family will all use together.
Speaker 3: There are gifts that people use to try to strengthen
Speaker 3: an insecure romantic relationship. There are gifts that people use
Speaker 3: they're kind of still meta referential gifts to clarify what
Speaker 3: kind of relationship people have, Like I'm getting you this
Speaker 3: gift that says we are more than friends, that sort
Speaker 3: of thing. And then there's another thing that I actually
Speaker 3: made reference to earlier. And unless we cut that part out,
Speaker 3: I don't know. But there's one thing I brought up earlier,
Speaker 3: which is the idea of gifts that lower search costs
Speaker 3: for both parties through specialization of searches. And this would
Speaker 3: be like I bring you gifts from my hometown, you
Speaker 3: bring me gifts from your home toown. We're actually saving
Speaker 3: each other the work of traveling to get something that
Speaker 3: we each would like. Yeah, now I wanted to mention
Speaker 3: one more thing, which is egoistic reasons that have been
Speaker 3: documented in experiments why people choose certain gifts over others.
Speaker 3: Selfish reasons people could have for selecting goods that they know,
Speaker 3: or at least suspect are not what the recipient would
Speaker 3: like the most. And these were actually really interesting to
Speaker 3: me because I was starting to think, like, oh man,
Speaker 3: have I ever done anything like this? I don't know,
Speaker 3: but there are some interesting documented reasons. One is wanting
Speaker 3: to avoid feeling envy. In a paper from twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: Givey and Gallic found that people sometimes give gifts that
Speaker 3: they know people want less, but the givers select these
Speaker 3: less desirable gifts if the more desirable gift would be
Speaker 3: better than the giver's own possessions give her the interpretation here.
Speaker 3: The interpretation that they put on this behavior is that
Speaker 3: the giver anticipates feeling envious of the gift that they
Speaker 3: got for somebody else, and thus they don't get it.
Speaker 3: They get them something worse on purpose to avoid devaluing
Speaker 3: their own stash of goods. This paper is titled keeping
Speaker 3: the Joneses from getting ahead in the first place.
Speaker 2: Oh, so this would be like if say you're a
Speaker 2: whiskey drinker. Yeah, and you, for whatever reason you decided, Okay,
Speaker 2: I need to get a bottle of whiskey as a
Speaker 2: gift for this friend, and you want to get them
Speaker 2: a nice bottle. But you don't want to get them
Speaker 2: a nicer bottle than your nicest bottle of whiskey, because
Speaker 2: then you know that you'll feel a certain way about
Speaker 2: them having a better bottle than you.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Yes, So people would in some cases go for
Speaker 3: the less nice whiskey there, even if they know the
Speaker 3: person would like the better one. Another reason that people
Speaker 3: might get a less preferred gift is wanting to feel unique.
Speaker 3: So in a paper published in twenty twenty, same pair
Speaker 3: of authors Gallic and Give Again. These authors are also
Speaker 3: both on this twenty twenty three paper and the twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen paper. They reported the results of five experiments which
Speaker 3: confirmed this phenomenon that people will often give people gifts
Speaker 3: that they know the recipient will like less if the
Speaker 3: alternative is giving them a more desirable gift that the
Speaker 3: giver also owns. So it's like, you know, I, well,
Speaker 3: I already have one of those, So I don't want
Speaker 3: to get that thing for Jack, even though I know
Speaker 3: he would like to have it. I'm going to get
Speaker 3: him something different, and the authors interpreted this behavior as
Speaker 3: a desire for uniqueness, that givers wanted to feel unique,
Speaker 3: and they would feel less unique if the recipient got
Speaker 3: this item that the giver already owned, so they choose
Speaker 3: something else, you know, so like I'm still the only
Speaker 3: person who gets to have this thing. And then finally,
Speaker 3: they point to an experiment research by Mary Steffil and
Speaker 3: Robin Lebuff from twenty fourteen that found when people are
Speaker 3: shopping for multiple different gift recipients, gift givers will give
Speaker 3: gifts that they expect people to like less in order
Speaker 3: to make sure that everyone gets a different and unique gift.
Speaker 3: And this is true if even when the giver believes that, like,
Speaker 3: one gift given to everybody is something that they would
Speaker 3: all like more, just because they don't want to be
Speaker 3: seen as giving the same thing to everybody because it
Speaker 3: looks less thoughtful.
Speaker 2: So even if everybody wants a la boo boo, you
Speaker 2: you're just gonna only one person gets a la boo
Speaker 2: boo because we don't want to decrease the specialness of
Speaker 2: that receipt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean some people might get everybody the la
Speaker 3: boo boo. But yeah, there are a lot of There
Speaker 3: are a lot of people who feel uncomfortable about that.
Speaker 3: They feel like it would look unthoughtful of them to
Speaker 3: get the same gift for everyone, So they've got to
Speaker 3: mix it up and end up getting people stuff that
Speaker 3: they even they expect that people will end up liking less.
Speaker 3: And then finally, you can imagine how other egoistic motivations
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier in the in the idea of giving
Speaker 3: people gifts would also affect the selection of particular gifts.
Speaker 3: I was thinking of the the internalizing external effects issue.
Speaker 3: So if I'm getting my partner an item of clothing
Speaker 3: that I would enjoy seeing them where, or getting them
Speaker 3: a perfumer cologne that I like the smell of, you know,
Speaker 3: in a way, that's a it's a gift for them,
Speaker 3: but it's also a gift for me. And then you
Speaker 3: can like kind of move that slider up and down
Speaker 3: the scale. Some gifts for them and for me are
Speaker 3: really a lot more a gift for me. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: of in the Sopranos when Aj gets his mom The
Speaker 3: Matrix on DVD for her birthday.
Speaker 2: So I haven't seen the sopranos. But I'm assuming the
Speaker 2: scenario here is he really wants to watch the matrix.
Speaker 3: Yes, she's like, haven't seen it? Yeah? And then of
Speaker 3: course there there are also these these giver recipient diad benefits.
Speaker 3: You know, you can see this in the preference for
Speaker 3: material gifts over experiential gifts, because there's a common belief
Speaker 3: people have that material gifts will strengthen relationships by acting
Speaker 3: as a mnemonic device. So people think, every time she
Speaker 3: sees this officially licensed space jam wall clock, she will
Speaker 3: think of me because I gave it to her. I
Speaker 3: think the research seems kind of mixed on that. I
Speaker 3: think maybe actually relationships might be strengthened more by experiential
Speaker 3: gifts as opposed to material ones.
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in all of these though, there's there's so many factors.
Speaker 2: Because in the paper I was looking at, they brought
Speaker 2: up the idea that when it comes to material versus
Speaker 2: experience gifts. The thing about experience gifts is generally it's
Speaker 2: not like you open the gift and it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're going on a canoe trip right now, right, It's
Speaker 2: it's some time later, So there's kind of a delay
Speaker 2: in the full expression of the gift, and depending on
Speaker 2: how you're approaching it, like that could in the moment
Speaker 2: feel less exciting. It's I guess the well, you know,
Speaker 2: it's gonna vary. They're gonna all these other factors are
Speaker 2: going to come into play.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, obviously there's going to be individual variation
Speaker 3: and all these trends we're talking about. So you know,
Speaker 3: even if people feel more closeness from experiential gifts on average,
Speaker 3: that's still just going to be on average. I mean
Speaker 3: some people, in some cases the material gift is going
Speaker 3: to be much preferable depending on what it is and
Speaker 3: the person and all that. So you know, there's no
Speaker 3: one size fits all for gift giving. This is just
Speaker 3: looking at trends basic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean it's worth saying too, like you
Speaker 2: can be the sort of person who in general values
Speaker 2: experience over material possessions, and you can still find yourself
Speaker 2: in the scenario where a piece of plastic garbage is
Speaker 2: going to hit in the way that a gift certificate
Speaker 2: for a canoe trip is not. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that that's not a great, great gift new trip like
Speaker 2: it may that may be the best gift you got
Speaker 2: that year, and it's going to lead to memorable moments
Speaker 2: down the line, it's going to strengthen relationships. But there's
Speaker 2: something about that plastic garbage. Sometimes it just absolutely does hit.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it hits it's just great. Okay, So I'm going
Speaker 3: to skip ahead to the part of this paper where
Speaker 3: they talk about our core idea today, the giver recipient mismatches.
Speaker 3: You know, so like why do people end up getting
Speaker 3: gifts they don't like or gifts that are less desirable
Speaker 3: when a more desirable gift was equally possible. Why do
Speaker 3: so many gift exchanges leave people feeling unsatisfied? And again,
Speaker 3: these answers are focused on good faith exchanges, genuine errors
Speaker 3: in gift giving, not incidents where people give a bad
Speaker 3: gift on purpose. And most of this research comes from
Speaker 3: experiments in the domain of psychology. A lot of the
Speaker 3: stuff they talk about in this paper is more from
Speaker 3: like business marketing and stuff, but a lot of this
Speaker 3: is psychology. So one big theme they identify for giver
Speaker 3: recipient mismatches, in other words, bad gift experiences, is based
Speaker 3: on gifting norms. The authors say that givers are too
Speaker 3: focused on the informal rules or norms of gift giving,
Speaker 3: and they end up giving less desired gifts because of it.
Speaker 3: So an example would be certain types of gifts are
Speaker 3: associated with certain relationships or certain holidays. The authors mention
Speaker 3: experiments showing that on Valentine's Day, givers feel pressure to
Speaker 3: give gifts that are appropriate to the occasion, like on
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day, you give your romantic partner a piece of jewelry,
Speaker 3: even though recipients would actually more often be happier receiving
Speaker 3: a gift not traditionally associated with the occasion. Again, these
Speaker 3: are just trends. You know. Some people love getting jewelry,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people would rather. For example, in
Speaker 3: one study, they looked at a lot of people would
Speaker 3: rather receive an e reader than a piece of jewelry
Speaker 3: on Valentine's Day. But the giver does it feels like
Speaker 3: that's not right to them. It's Valentine's Day, so it
Speaker 3: needs to be a certain kind of gift.
Speaker 2: But media hasn't programmed us yet to expect an e
Speaker 2: reader for Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but on average, So yeah, you've got this occasion
Speaker 3: or relationship related pressure that is driving the gift giver's
Speaker 3: aim off, driving it further away from the target area
Speaker 3: that the recipient would actually enjoy the most. Another way
Speaker 3: that gift giving norms can lead people astray is that
Speaker 3: givers prefer to give new products instead of superior used
Speaker 3: products of the same type. It just feels like you're
Speaker 3: not supposed to give people something used as a gift.
Speaker 3: But you know, often people would rather get a better
Speaker 3: thing in used form than a less good thing in
Speaker 3: new form. But the giver, they're going to opt for
Speaker 3: the new thing because it just doesn't feel right to
Speaker 3: give something used.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And it's weird how that can certainly coexist
Speaker 2: with say, putting particular used book on your wish list,
Speaker 2: like putting it out there that yeah, I want this book,
Speaker 2: and the only way to get it is to get
Speaker 2: an old copy from the eighties. There's not a new copy.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, when you're actually buying things, you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm gonna get them the nice one that's
Speaker 2: gonna you know, I guess selfishly. You know, we can
Speaker 2: even think that's going to reflect on me better that
Speaker 2: I actually ponied up and bought them the new edition.
Speaker 3: I love getting used books that that feels like kind
Speaker 3: of actually extra special to me. It's got more character
Speaker 3: in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's got a history. It's sometimes it has
Speaker 2: notes in it.
Speaker 3: Another example is that of the norms leading people astrays
Speaker 3: that givers refrain from gifts that have been given within
Speaker 3: the same giver recipient diad before, even when recipients wish
Speaker 3: to receive the same familiar gifts again. It just feels
Speaker 3: like you're supposed to mix it up, you know, like
Speaker 3: you should give something different. But often recipients are happy
Speaker 3: to receive an already familiar gift if it's something they
Speaker 3: like and could consume again. Okay, next thing. This lines
Speaker 3: up very much with the twenty six and paper They
Speaker 3: say people are led astray and gift giving by temporal focus.
Speaker 3: Givers focus too much on making sure the recipient will
Speaker 3: be happy in the moment they open the gift, as
Speaker 3: opposed to making sure that it's going to give them
Speaker 3: lasting enjoyment or utility over time. So givers seem to
Speaker 3: prefer fun gifts that are not very useful, while recipients
Speaker 3: prefer useful gifts. And the idea of fun gifts that
Speaker 3: are not very useful. It makes me think of a
Speaker 3: lot of the things we give each other around Christmas.
Speaker 3: And this is not to slam these things, because I
Speaker 3: give these things too. I mean they are fun at Christmas,
Speaker 3: but like weird little novelties that are funny when you
Speaker 3: first open them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it is weird to reflect on these
Speaker 2: because some of these certainly do find their way into
Speaker 2: the garbage, generally by way of a junk drawer two
Speaker 2: or three years later. But I have to admit, like,
Speaker 2: I have some of those gifts that are still in
Speaker 2: my bedside table, and I'd never use them, use them,
Speaker 2: but I do look at them occasionally and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I remember when I received this gift and it was
Speaker 2: novel and surprising, and therefore it gets to stay in
Speaker 2: the drawer.
Speaker 3: Oh well, yeah. I mean sometimes, like we said earlier,
Speaker 3: the same object that you would not value that much
Speaker 3: or buy for yourself, if it is a gift, you know,
Speaker 3: for cinemental reasons, it can take on value for you.
Speaker 2: Yea, even if it's kind of like you know, pointless
Speaker 2: centiment where if someone says that came up and said
Speaker 2: why are you keeping that? You got to throw it out?
Speaker 2: I would be like, oh yeah, okay, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: I'll do that, but it can it's sticky, just sticky
Speaker 2: enough to remain in my life.
Speaker 3: Okay, this next example I think will be really interesting
Speaker 3: because it kind of runs counter to your example of
Speaker 3: a bad gift that's like the half of the sweat
Speaker 3: sweatsuit and then the other half later. Uh. The authors
Speaker 3: here say that studies have found givers are anxious about
Speaker 3: giving gifts that are incomplete or somehow not yet matured.
Speaker 3: Recipients are often quite happy with gifts that are incomplete
Speaker 3: or will grow in enjoyment or utility over time. So
Speaker 3: a few examples here, givers would rather give a less
Speaker 3: desirable bouquet of flowers that are already in bloom than
Speaker 3: a more desirable bouquet that is not yet in bloom,
Speaker 3: and so like givers are, they would be anxious about
Speaker 3: the fact that the flowers are not ready yet when
Speaker 3: they're given. They're only going to achieve their maximum beauty later,
Speaker 3: and recipients seem to care less about this. Another thing
Speaker 3: the authors found is that a lot of times recipients
Speaker 3: are perfectly happy to get partial contributions toward more highly
Speaker 3: desired products. So I could buy and give you a
Speaker 3: complete fifty dollars dinner plate set, or I could make
Speaker 3: a fifty dollars contribution toward the cost of a one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars dinner plate set that you definitely do want more.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, if you actually don't like the one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars one, that doesn't matter. But if you like
Speaker 3: the one hundred dollars one more and that's the one
Speaker 3: you want, Recipients are often happy to get this kind
Speaker 3: of incomplete contribution toward a gift, and givers don't really
Speaker 3: expect this.
Speaker 2: One of the things this is slightly related. One of
Speaker 2: the things that they went into in the twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: paper is that the givers emphasis on that wow moment,
Speaker 2: that moment of reception, that opening could potentially lead to
Speaker 2: the situation where they take one gift and break it
Speaker 2: up into parts and give it in multiple installments, not
Speaker 2: spread out over multiple years, but certainly like all at once.
Speaker 2: So let's say I am going to give you that
Speaker 2: dinner plate set. I'm going to wrap each piece of
Speaker 2: the dinner plate set individually, and therefore I get instead
Speaker 2: of getting like one rush from you opening the gift,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get multiple rushes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's ten gifts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but I think you can easily imagine where
Speaker 2: this could become tiresome, depending on if you're artificially breaking
Speaker 2: things up too much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, one more subtopic, getting towards the end. Here,
Speaker 3: they talk about risk aversion. You know, they say givers
Speaker 3: or risk averse. They often shy away from gifts that
Speaker 3: could be perceived as overly sentimental, maybe gifts that assume
Speaker 3: too much familiarity. You know, we're cautious about doing that.
Speaker 3: We don't want to send the wrong message or make
Speaker 3: people feel awkward or embarrassed. People are cautious about giving
Speaker 3: gifts that require too much knowledge of the receiver's personality,
Speaker 3: So givers tend to prefer material gifts that match the
Speaker 3: receiver's superficial tastes because it just feels less socially dangerous.
Speaker 3: So like, I know you like pizza, so I got
Speaker 3: you some pizza themed chachkes, you know, some little plastic
Speaker 3: pizza things. Versus I know you love architecture, so I
Speaker 3: got you tickets for us to go on an architecture tour. Obviously, again,
Speaker 3: this is going to vary by the relationship and the
Speaker 3: individual case. But the latter is often preferred. Recipients on
Speaker 3: average report feeling more happiness and more closeness to givers
Speaker 3: when they receive an experience as opposed to a material gift,
Speaker 3: and also when the gift has something includes thoughtfulness of
Speaker 3: like the recipient's deep personal preferences, when it indicates knowledge
Speaker 3: of their personality intimately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this makes sense. I think we all know people.
Speaker 2: Maybe we are those people where you've received like one
Speaker 2: toy pig or or you know, some sort of maybe
Speaker 2: you have a particular dog breed in your life and
Speaker 2: someone gives you a nickknack based on that preference, and
Speaker 2: then they just begin to accumulate because that becomes the
Speaker 2: safe thing to give you, oh so and sows into cuttlefish,
Speaker 2: and then all they get are cuttlefish nickknacks.
Speaker 3: Right, So there is a lot of error. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of errors in gift giving just based on
Speaker 3: risk aversion, givers are more inclin line to pick something
Speaker 3: they think the recipient is highly likely to enjoy a
Speaker 3: little bit, as opposed to having less certainty about something
Speaker 3: that the recipient might enjoy a lot.
Speaker 2: And I want to I want to interrupt here and
Speaker 2: just go ahead and let everybody know you're doing fine,
Speaker 2: don't worry.
Speaker 3: Fine, it's because.
Speaker 2: You might be thinking, now, geez, I just did this,
Speaker 2: and I have to admit, like, I literally just mailed
Speaker 2: a Christmas gift to Joe where I'm like, is that
Speaker 2: plastic garbage? Does that? Does that mean nothing? Is that
Speaker 2: an expected choski? Maybe? But it's fine.
Speaker 3: I love We've already talked about this earlier. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean they're they're great. Yeah. Yeah, Actually I don't think
Speaker 3: I've told you about this yet. But a Christmas ornament
Speaker 3: that that y'all send us one year is like a
Speaker 3: little skeleton that goes on the Christmas tree. Our our
Speaker 3: daughter loves it, you know, she keeps pointing to it.
Speaker 3: She's like, he's a little skeleton guy dances in Okay,
Speaker 3: so oh, one last thing here. In terms of risk aversion,
Speaker 3: givers sometimes seem to prefer giving gifts that are high
Speaker 3: in perceived quality and low in quantity as opposed to
Speaker 3: the other way around, mainly due to risk aversion fear
Speaker 3: of being seen as having bad taste. So you get
Speaker 3: somebody one expensive bottle of wine versus two bottles of
Speaker 3: cheaper wine. That's not always what the recipient would want.
Speaker 3: Some people might prefer that, but sometimes recipients would prefer
Speaker 3: the two bottles, but the giver is afraid of some
Speaker 3: perceived risk in selecting the cheaper label.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you even give them the smaller nice bottle
Speaker 2: as opposed to the box that they really want.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean again, it just depends on the person.
Speaker 3: Like if you know the person's preferences, give them what
Speaker 3: they want. Here, we're just like looking at averages. So
Speaker 3: an one last thing here is about thoughtfulness. We talked
Speaker 3: about thoughtfulness earlier, but it comes back to this distinction
Speaker 3: between relationship oriented thoughtfulness and non relationship oriented thoughtfulness. Again,
Speaker 3: on average, recipients like relationship oriented thought so like stuff
Speaker 3: that indicates a strong personal connection that symbolizes the relationship itself,
Speaker 3: or maybe indicates a personal sacrifice of time and effort
Speaker 3: in like making a handmade gift for someone or something
Speaker 3: like that. So it's like a manifestation of the relationship.
Speaker 3: Non relationship oriented thoughtfulness actually leads gift givers astray. It's
Speaker 3: like sending them in the wrong direction. For example, givers
Speaker 3: tend to prefer more tailored, narrow gifts, like a gift
Speaker 3: card that can only be used at one particular store,
Speaker 3: where more on average, recipients would prefer more versatile gifts,
Speaker 3: like the gift you know, the credit card kind of
Speaker 3: gift card that you can use basically anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but who wants to give that like that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the kind of that's that's a great Crims gift
Speaker 2: to receive from your place of employment.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, that's That's the other thing the authors
Speaker 3: talk about this cash gifts versus non cash gifts. They say, actually,
Speaker 3: givers are too pessimistic about giving cash. Obviously, some people
Speaker 3: are going to be insulted by getting cash, but gift
Speaker 3: givers overestimate how common that reaction is. Givers feel like
Speaker 3: people will not like receiving cash, will not appreciate it,
Speaker 3: But recipients on average like getting cash much more often
Speaker 3: than people expect. People feel like, I don't know, it
Speaker 3: feels like there's something impersonal about a cash gift when
Speaker 3: you're in the gift giving mode, But it just feels
Speaker 3: less that way for people on average in gift receiving mode.
Speaker 3: There was an interesting finding from nineteen eighty three about
Speaker 3: this that was a study that found people compensate for
Speaker 3: this anxiety about cash giving cash gifts being taken as
Speaker 3: rude or impersonal. They compensate by giving more cash when
Speaker 3: they give cash gifts, then they would spend on an
Speaker 3: in kind gift for the same person and occasion. So
Speaker 3: if I'm buying you a gift, maybe my price limit
Speaker 3: is forty dollars, But if I'm just giving you cash,
Speaker 3: I feel kind of bad about it, So I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you sixty dollars.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay.
Speaker 3: And then one last thing I want to emphasize, because
Speaker 3: they do say this, it is not necessarily a bad
Speaker 3: idea to get somebody a gift that they have already
Speaker 3: received in the past. Some people might not like that,
Speaker 3: but if it's something people like, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people want to get it again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's not going to apply to
Speaker 2: every category of saying. Obviously, how many copies of Monopoly
Speaker 2: do you need in your right right? But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like they receive that same bottle of wine last year. Well,
Speaker 2: as they liked it, there's a good chance they are
Speaker 2: in need of a new bottle. So yeah, I could
Speaker 2: see that very much being the case.
Speaker 3: Okay, Obviously, this paper gets into a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: other stuff. But I think I'm going to have to
Speaker 3: cap it there that that's what's most relevant to our
Speaker 3: discussion today. But I do just want want to emphasize
Speaker 3: again at the end, like the stakes are low in
Speaker 3: you know, in secure relationships. Uh, it really is mostly
Speaker 3: the thought that counts. It is nice to get people
Speaker 3: gifts that they really will enjoy and use. But but yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, if it's not the perfect gift, and almost
Speaker 3: nothing is, there's it's not there's not a huge downside
Speaker 3: most of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you've probably done a great job this season,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna do a great job next year. But
Speaker 2: maybe next year you'll be just a little a little
Speaker 2: better by thinking about, you know, at least some of
Speaker 2: these broad categories we've discussed here. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and close out this episode of stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind. We'd love to hear from everyone out there,
Speaker 2: because you know, everyone's gonna have thoughts on this. You're
Speaker 2: gonna have personal bits of wisdom related to gift giving.
Speaker 2: You're gonna have some examples of some errors in gift
Speaker 2: giving that that that you have committed and that others
Speaker 2: have committed and all that is fair game, so as
Speaker 2: a right in we'd love to hear from you. Just
Speaker 2: a reminder to everyone out there, The Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we put
Speaker 2: out a short form episode, and on Fridays we set
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow
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