Here’s a good way to make sure a friend hates a gift from you: Say it will save him money.
In a series of studies, researchers found that people reacted negatively to gifts that they were told – or that they inferred – were given to help them save money.
Receiving this kind of present makes a person feel inferior to the gift-giver, the research found. People are more receptive to gifts that are intended to save them time.
“Most of us have this belief that any gift we give is going to be appreciated – but the way a gift is presented can influence how people feel about it,” said Grant Donnelly, co-author of the study, assistant professor of marketing in the Fisher College of Business and a core faculty member of the Sustainability Institute.
The study was published recently in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research.
While money-saving gifts often miss the mark, gifts intended to save people time are seen as a compliment, Donnelly said.
“When you don’t have time, you’re perceived as busy and in high demand. There’s something high-status about that, compared to not having enough money, which is seen as low status,” he said.
In one study, the researchers asked 405 people recruited online to recall recently receiving a gift that they thought was intended by the gift-giver to save them either time or money.
They were asked to write a few sentences about how they felt about the gift and then completed various measures assessing their impression of the gift and gift-giver.
Results showed that those who received the gift intended to save them money were more likely to say the gift made them feel embarrassed, ashamed and bad, compared to those who recalled the time-saving gift.
The reason? Those who received the money-saving gift reported that they believed the gift-giver perceived their own status as higher than the recipient’s.
“They thought the gift-giver was implying they couldn’t take care of themselves and were incompetent because they needed money,” Donnelly said.
Continue learning about Donnelly's research on the perceptions of gift giving.