To be a really successful giver of gifts, a person usually needs to get inside the head of the intended recipient. Unfortunately, psychological studies reveal that givers and receivers have a hard time understanding each other's mind-sets, which can make for a tricky holiday experience.
Should you spend more on a gift? Should you be ashamed of regifting? Psychological studies reveal the tricky experience of giving the right holiday gifts. Leslie Yazel discusses on Lunch Break.
Take regifting. That Crock-Pot your well-meaning aunt gave you last year that you are shamefully contemplating wrapping up for your dear neighbor this year? Research shows you can go right ahead and regift it, shame intact. Your aunt probably won't mind.
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Many people shy away from regifting, or hide the fact they are doing it, out of fear the original giver of the item could be offended. Don't worry, says a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science. The person who first gave the item is less likely to be offended than the regifter expects.
Some gift givers spend time and energy trying to find just the right gift. But thoughtful gifts don't necessarily lead to greater appreciation, according to a study published in November in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. The benefit of a thoughtful gift actually accrues mainly to the giver, who derives a feeling of closeness to the other person, the study found.
People are more appreciative when they receive a gift they have explicitly requested, according to a similar study published last year in a separate publication called the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Sharon Love once received a book that was clearly regifted: It was inscribed to the giver. She gave it back to him the following year. Ms. Love, who heads a marketing agency in New York, is herself a regifter when a gift is appropriate for another person.
"It turns out it's not the thought that counts, it's the gift that counts," says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago who co-authored the November study.
Another study found spending more money on a gift doesn't necessarily translate into greater appreciation. That might come as a surprise to many gift givers, who often assume that a more expensive gift conveys a higher level of thoughtfulness, according to the research, published in 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
"Everyone has been a giver and receiver often in the past," says Francis Flynn, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, who has done research in the field of gift giving. Despite knowing what these roles feel like, people often fail, for instance, to draw on the experience of being a recipient when they are shopping for a gift to give, he says.
Regifting, once a social taboo, is gradually gaining in acceptance. According to a nationwide consumer-spending survey by American Express, 58% of people believe it is OK sometimes to regift an item. That figure rises for the holiday season, when 79% of respondents said they believe regifting is socially acceptable. The survey, which polled about 2,000 people last year, found that nearly one-quarter of consumers said they regifted at least one item the previous holiday season.
Regifting can lead to awkward moments. Humera Sayeed, a graduate student at Loyola University Chicago, received a brown leather Marc Jacobs purse from her aunt last year. The 26-year-old says she appreciated the high-quality purse but it wasn't exactly her taste.
"I thought, 'You know, I know someone else would like it more than I would.' So I gave it to one of my friends for her birthday," Ms. Sayeed says. About six months later, the friend came over to Ms. Sayeed's aunt's house, purse in hand, and the aunt exclaimed, "You know, Humera has a purse just like that!"
"I said, 'You know Auntie, I loved it so much that I got her the same one,' " Ms. Sayeed fibbed. "I had a moment to probably come clean about it and I just decided it would be better not to, which I guess is why people feel sneaky about regifting."
In the study of regifting, researchers conducted five separate experiments involving nearly 500 people in both real and imagined scenarios. The reason people weren't overly bothered when their gifts were later regifted was because they generally believed the recipient was free to decide what to do with an item. On the other hand, regifters were fearful of offending because they believed the original giver should retain some say in how the gifts were used.
The different points of view held true regardless of whether the gift givers and receivers were friends. The relative desirability of the gift also didn't affect the findings. When the researchers introduced the concept of a national holiday for regifting into the experiments, participants were more likely to give away their gifts.
There are efforts to promote regifting. Money Management International, a nonprofit that helps people facing financial difficulties, has run a Regiftable.com website for more than five years and declared the third Thursday in December to be National Regifting Day, to coincide with many holiday office parties. At least one state, Colorado, has officially sanctioned an annual regifting day.
"Regifting isn't a bad thing, it's not quite as offensive as people might think it is," says Gabrielle Adams, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the London Business School and a co-author of the recent study in Psychological Science.
Sharon Love, who heads a retail marketing agency, says she frequently regifts an item if she feels it is appropriate for another person. But she says she tries to be upfront about it.
Ms. Love, who lives in New York City, says she once received an entertainment and etiquette book that was clearly regifted: The book contained an inscription made out to the giver. "It did kind of make me mad, so I just kind of regifted it the following year back to him," she says. Ms. Love says she received a thank-you card in return.
The adage "It's the thought that counts" was largely debunked by the recent study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, which concluded that gift givers are better off choosing gifts that receivers actually desire rather than spending a lot of time and energy shopping for what they perceive to be a thoughtful gift. The study found thoughtfulness doesn't increase a recipient's appreciation if the gift is a desirable one. In fact, thoughtfulness only seemed to count when a friend gives a gift that is disliked.
"The secret to being a good gift giver…is to give them what they want," says Dr. Epley, from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Epley says that after his wife gave birth to their second child, he spent a lot of time dreaming up what he thought was the perfect Christmas gift for her: a behind-the-scenes day as a trainer at the Chicago aquarium. "She loves marine animals, I thought this would be the best thing for her," he says.
Instead, he says, "She hated the gift. The idea of squeezing into a Neoprene wetsuit a month after giving birth and holding a stinky fish over a penguin or a dolphin was the last thing she wanted to do." She returned the gift.
Now, Dr. Epley says he asks his wife to tell him what she wants before the holiday season. She presented him with a list last week.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
Take regifting. That Crock-Pot your well-meaning aunt gave you last year that you are shamefully contemplating wrapping up for your dear neighbor this year? Research shows you can go right ahead and regift it, shame intact. Your aunt probably won't mind.
But as my training progressed the mysteries
and the purpose of dance began to unveil. We were trained with the basics of 12 formal styles of dance and martial
arts. My guru once said, ‘you have conceived dance, it is still an embryo, you
need to nurture it, protect it, think effectively of its growth, you should be
aware of what is within you, until you deliver a full grown healthy baby-your choreography’ that becomes your own
production a combination of your creative and intellectual power. This changed
my life and yes I found an answer to the questions I had. Training under him
for 6 years brought tremendous meaning in my life, as a dancer and above all as
a human being!
Whatever you feel becomes an emotion which in
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your limbs, even your breath is controlled in respect to your emotion, so why
not use these movements as a powerful medium of communication? Dance should not
be limited to just movements, and showcasing mythological and historic events,
it has divine power to evoke a thought, to translate a social message or
sometimes to just reflect the expression of your soul.
I moved on then to create pieces I called,
Women empowerment, Suicide, Abortion - Oh My Child!, Choice- A temptation? and
many more. Some were huge successes while some a failure, but I am still learning and believe I will keep translating my thoughts as long as The Lord enables me.
For someone who grew up on volumes of Ian Flemming and someone who appreciated the slow seeping tension while Bond comes out with impossible situations and emerge a winner; For someone who watched Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies and all the newer Bond movies several times and loved them; For someone who then watched Sean Connery and other battery of bonds relive the legend, I have a fairly good idea of how you would want a Bond should look like, act like, run like, think like and shoot like.
After a hair-raising opening sequence in Serbia featuring car chase,
shoot-out and the near-derailment of a train carrying lethal chemicals,
Bond's main mission is to prevent a massive terrorist atrocity. The only
clue is an intercept promising thousands of deaths on the night of
Friday 20th, with British interests adversely affected. Bond has only
five days to determine the nature of the threat, identify its main
players and stop them, while dodging unknown assailants who want him
dead and the usual buffoonery of chinless incompetents within the
British security services, sticklers for procedure who oblige him to
interpret Carte Blanche in his own way.
Isn't it textbook for a police officer to solve a case when he is suspended? Isn't it true that children end up doing what you tell them not to do? Isn't it funny that you have all the films of a police officer who is rogue, cares little about the rules, ignores his superiors and has a devoted family or has a problem at home? Isn't it text book to have a villain who is mysterious, powerful and cunning that you cannot find out who he is when he is standing right next to you? Well, take all these regular recipes and try to cook something new or you have an option to create a similar recipe but make it into a pleasing familiar dish that takes you to a nice place.
How would you feel if you suddenly got up and find out you are back in time? How would you feel all the movies you have in bollywood are time-themed? That's how I feel when I see the literature available today. How wonderful is tha to a history lover! Aroon Raman brings out a hot thriller that matches Ek Tha Tiger and probably Jab Thak Hai Jaan and a couple of other romantic crime thrillers. Ok minus the romance but then this is a men's movie with a woman cracking the case.
How can you change someone's day and make it better?
