Gift Recipients’ Beliefs About Occasion-based and Nonoccasion-based Gifts: The Importance of Signaling Care and Meeting Expectations in Gift Giving
Journal of Consumer Psychology · 2022 · Volume 32 · Issue 3
Abstract
Most gifts areoccasion-basedas opposed tononoccasion-based. That is, most gifts are given in the presence of a special occasion, rather than in the absence of one. Across a series of scenario-based studies, the present research demonstrates that, despite occasion-based gifts being much more common, recipients anticipate that their happiness levels will be quite high when receivingnonoccasion-basedgifts, varying little with gift quality. In contrast, they anticipate that their happiness levels willnotalways be high when receiving occasion-based gifts, varying greatly with gift quality. These diverging outcomes arise because the caliber of gift that is required to signal care and thus meet a recipient’s expectation is much lower for nonoccasion-based gifts than for occasion-based ones. Critically, givers misforecast recipients’ anticipated positive reactions to nonoccasion-based gifts, helping to explain why these gifts are, unfortunately, rather rare.
Keywords
Expectations, Gift giving, Happiness, Prosocial behavior, Signaling
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