5 Weird Psychological Dangers of Giving People Gifts

So, for most of us, when it comes to the people closest to us, we want to surprise them.

We'll search high and low for the perfect gift -- one that proves just how well we know them. It takes a hundred times more effort, but so be it. Those are the gifts that people really treasure. Right?

But Actually ...

It turns out that -- surprise! -- people don't like surprises as much as we think they do.

Professors from Harvard and Stanford ran a series of experiments on gift-giving -- five of them, to be exact, because apparently that's all researchers are busy with these days (suck it, cancer!). What they found each time was that recipients generally just wanted to get the gift they explicitly asked for, and get this: The receivers actually perceived such explicitly-asked-for gifts as "more thoughtful and considerate" than the special surprise gifts the givers spent so much time trying to hunt down. The gift-giving motto is apparently "Don't think. Just do as commanded," a phrase you typically don't see spelled out on festive holiday sweaters.

But what's really interesting about this is that we should already now it. Think about it -- we're all givers and receivers of gifts -- so while we know we prefer to get precisely what we want, we all assume other people prefer to get thoughtful gifts that may be way off the mark. In other words, we trust ourselves to find a super awesome gift the recipient didn't even know they wanted, but we assume other people are too stupid to do that for us. Typical.

Oh, and do you know what gift consistently got the highest rating? Cash. The laziest, easiest, least personal gift you can give someone is also the one they look forward to getting the most. Because that removes all doubt about whether or not they'll get the right thing -- cash always fits.

What's better than giving people stuff? Giving people more stuff. Yes, the dragon living outside your village seems happy with your sacrifice of a buxom wench, but why not throw in a baby or two to sweeten the deal?

Or, for a more practical example, if you're not sure the person you're buying for will like your big gift, why not throw in something small along with it? It can only help -- if giving makes you look kind, then giving more only makes you look kinder. It's logic.

But Actually ...

Humans do not function according to logic. This isn't a criticism of the species, it's just a fact -- logic is a horrible way to predict how the human brain will react to something. Logically, it shouldn't be a big deal to find a dead tarantula in your breakfast cereal -- it can't hurt you, and you can eat around it -- but your brain will tell you, "Flee the room and burn the house down."

Well in this case, for some reason adding a small gift to a big gift doesn't make the recipient think, "Ooh, more stuff." Our brain doesn't add up the gifts when deciding on value, it averages them out. A $100 sweater and a $10 gift card says to our brain, "This stuff is worth, like, 50 bucks." This is known as the Presenter's Paradox (also a suitable name for going back in time and killing the guy on TV that told you how to build a time machine).

When looking at a package deal, our brain has a tendency to use the lesser parts to dilute the value of the greater parts. It works for good and bad things both -- adding two hours of community service to a $750 fine made people rate the punishment as less severe than the fine by itself.

It actually almost makes sense when presented that way -- you hear the two hours and think, "Well, the judge must not have been THAT mad at me: Two hours is nothing!" and it puts the fine in a new light. So if somebody gives you what appears to be a very expensive rhinestone codpiece, and inside you find they've also tossed a $5 coupon to Taco Bell, you think, "OK, these rhinestones probably aren't real."

But Actually ...

Men get tied up in emotional knots when they get a gift -- they find expressing gratitude to be more complex and uncertain than women do, and for men it's tinged with more internal conflict. Men have been so hammered with ideas of detached masculinity that saying "thank you" carries emotional baggage that's normally reserved for interactions involving genitals.

While women can (usually) accept a gift as simply someone trying to be kind, a man's reaction is more, "Oh God, now I need to get something in return or I'll look like an ass. Life would be much simpler if nobody gave me anything." There's a reason Scrooge isn't a woman. Yes, the reason is that Victorian England allowed women to make exactly jack shit, so that would've been totally unrealistic, but we're going to shoehorn "men hate gifts" in as a reason for the purposes of this article.

So yes, ladies, you may have spent weeks hunting down the perfect anniversary present for your man while he got you jack shit, but he's not actually the bad guy here. The internal struggle he experiences when he opens his present is part of an emotional cocktail that tends to ruin his overall happiness. You should be ashamed of yourselves, ladies.

We'd like to think that if you spend all of your life with someone, you'll eventually know them even better than you know yourself. These beacons of companionship can basically read each other's minds, so if there is one exception to the "don't guess on the gift" rule above, it's these old farts.

But Actually ...

Psychologists from the University of Basel in Switzerland did a study with two groups of couples -- one group consisting of couples who had been together for an average of about two years, and the other old-timers who'd been married for over 40 years. The couples were presented with a number of items, including food, movies, and kitchen designs (buying someone a kitchen equals instant lay). Then they were asked to rate each prospective gift from 1 to 4 based on what they liked, and then again based on what they thought their partner would like. (You can never go wrong with Boba Fett-shaped robes, right?)

Surprisingly, the younger couples did a better job predicting what their lovers would be into. The older couples incorrectly tended to think their other half would like the same things they liked. Scientists aren't entirely sure why the older people stopped listening to each other after 40 years, but it might have something to do with the fact they'd been listening to each other for 40 goddamn years.

The researchers suggest that couples that have been together that long might just constantly lie to each other to keep the other person happy, or it might be that their generation is one that never put much stock in married couples talking to each other in the first place. But don't take that the wrong way -- the older couples reported more satisfaction with their relationships overall, suggesting that taking any notice of the other person's interests is probably a complete waste of time anyway.

There are a whole bunch of social faux pas that can turn your peers against you. You could put your keys in the bowl even though you haven't showered for three days, and anyway it's not swingers night until next week. Typically, though, the guy or girl everyone finds most annoying is the one who never contributes -- they don't bring drinks to parties, they "forget" their wallet when you go out, and they ask if anyone has a spare set of keys, because they walked and surely two nights of group loving a month would be fine?

So by that logic, the person on the other end of that scale -- the one who is paying more than his or her fair share -- is the most loved. Wait, did we just use the word "logic" there? Uh oh ...

But Actually ...

Don't get us wrong, people do hate the non-contributors. But they've got just as big a rage boner for those who contribute more than everyone else, even if everyone involved ends up better off as a result.

Sociologists at Washington State University did an experiment to test how people reacted to outliers who were either stingier or more altruistic than average. Participants were told they were part of a group of six and sat in front of a computer to take part in a turn-based test (the rest of the group were really just computer simulations). They were given points they would later be able to cash in for the chance to win a gift card, and asked to decide how much to contribute to a community pot. When everyone was done making voluntary donations, the pot would be doubled and split equally. In other words, if most people were kind, everyone would be better off, but one stingy asshole could game the system by donating nothing and ending up with more. So kind of basic Game Theory, right?

In the second round, people were allowed to spend some of their points to punish another member by taking theirs away. Unsurprisingly, the subjects tended to punish the greedy non-contributor for not playing fair. But people in the experiment also opted to be needlessly horrible when the rogue participant had donated more (and benefited literally everyone).

You can already guess why -- it's the same reason you always see backlash against someone like Bono, who makes a big show of helping starving Africans and reminding us of how much better he is than we are. We want to punish them for showing off. In other words, we have such a strong impulse to force people to conform to the group and punish those who don't make an effort to fit in, that we do it even if "not fitting in" is the equivalent of "making life better for the group overall."

Stop and think about that for a while, and you might come to the conclusion that humanity is doomed.

Daniel's unsolicited gift to the world is his humor blog, so you're welcome. Alan will overcome his manly inhibitions and be thankful if you follow him on twitter or read his blog.

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Related Reading: For a look at the best gifts money can buy, click here. Shark-boats are a pretty risk-free present. If you're more interested in avoiding the worst gifts on earth, this is the article to read. Nobody wants novelty presents. And nobody wants these incredibly creepy gifts.