Authors: Teigen, Karl Halvor¹; Olsen, Marina V. G.²; Solås, Odd Egil²

Source: British Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 44, Number 1, March 2005 , pp. 125-144(20)

More about this publication?

• Information for Authors
• Submit a Paper
• Subscribe to this Title
• Society Information

More like this?

• In this Subject: Psychology
• By this author: Teigen, Karl Halvor ;  Olsen, Marina V. G. ;  Solås, Odd Egil

Abstract:

When people are asked to choose between gift items, givers and receivers sometimes show different patterns of preferences. The article reports four experimental studies exploring these giver–receiver asymmetries. Whereas givers tend to prefer exclusive, but smaller gift items, receivers appear to prefer less luxurious, and more useful gifts (Experiment 1). Givers prefer gift vouchers to cash, and are concerned about timing, whereas more receivers accept cash gifts, and claim that it does not matter if the gift arrives late (Experiment 2). One interpretation of the results could be that givers conform more strongly to gift conventions (cultural norms for gift exchange). It is further argued that these differences are not due to a perceived difference between self and others (Experiment 3), but rather because of situational differences. When receivers perform separate evaluations of gifts rather than joint evaluations (pairwise comparisons), they tend to change their preference pattern towards a higher rating of exclusive gift items (Experiment 4).

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1348/014466604X23428

Affiliations: 1: University of Oslo, Norway 2: University of Tromsø, Norway

User name

 

Password

 

 

Remember me

 

 

 

• forgotten your password?
• Sign in via Athens