Have you ever had one of those awkward moments where the gift you gave didn’t compare very well to the one you got? Maybe your gift was a lot cheaper than the one you got, or vice-versa. Or the present you gave was very nice, but pretty impersonal, while the gift you got was obviously selected with a lot of care and thought. I can still vividly remember quite a few times when a gift I thought was pretty cool got me in the doghouse, for reasons I didn't understand. Maybe this happens to men more often than women, but it definitely takes a lot of the fun out of gift giving for everyone. If you have a few of these bad experiences in your gift-giving history, the upcoming holidays might be a real source of anxiety and trepidation. Are you going to blow it again? How do you figure out what gift to give? You can’t go overboard just to make sure your present is the best, because that will make the other person just as uncomfortable as you are when your gift is the “inferior” one. Somehow, you have to figure out how to get it just right, and that can be pretty stressful. Sure, people may say “it’s the thought that counts,” and act like it’s no big deal when a gift comes up a bit flat. And usually, that’s what we actually want to believe. But obviously this is one of those situations where our thoughts and our feelings aren’t playing by the same rules. Mismatched gifts often do make people uncomfortable. What’s going on here? Experts say there are probably several things going on. One is that exchanging gifts naturally triggers our innate “reciprocity calculator.” For social animals like us, the ability to recognize when the constant give and take involved in our social relationships is out of balance is pretty crucial for survival. It’s perfectly natural—and necessary—to feel some guilt, shame, or discomfort when we get more than we give, and disappointment, anger, or resentment when we give more than we get. Without these feelings, we’d all be sociopaths, out to get the best of everyone else, and no society or relationship could survive very long. Just calling something a “gift” doesn’t turn your reciprocity calculator off. In fact, it may even throw it into high gear, especially when gifts are being exchanged with significant others you know well. That’s because we usually expect that the people we are closest to will know us well enough to give us a “good” present—not expensive or fancy, necessarily, but something that suits us and our personal desires pretty well. Another off the rack necktie or a new vacuum cleaner just isn’t going to cut the mustard when you’re looking for something that reflects and expresses your personal connections with the giver. As this research shows, several other factors also influence reactions to the gifts we get, including gender and the nature of the relationship between giver and receiver. Unfortunately, though, turning all this information into the ability to pick the right gift for the right person is far from easy or automatic. That still seems to be more art--and good communication--than science. But at least it might help to know that all this stuff is often going on, whether people are aware of it or not. That way, you can at least talk about problems if they arise, or head them off in advance, instead of feeling like you really are from another planet, or wondering why someone isn’t speaking to you at the moment, despite that great gift you just gave them. What do you think? Have you had any really bad--or good--gift giving experiences? What have you learned from them? |
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