PSYCHOLOGY/LIFE: Frugality & Gift Giving

Friend Professor Karen Pine, has been researching the psychology of gift-giving and she's found amongst other things that a tell-tale sign of someone not liking our gift choice is their moving the object out of sight. We just can't bare to look at bad presents apparently. Took Mr Chivers for part of his Christmas present yesterday which was Tim Harford's School of Life sermon on frugality. How very reassuring to listen to Tim telling us about why not to bother writing Christmas cards, or at least not the kind of Christmas cards people usually send. Well what's the point unless you personalise - think about it, do you like receiving Christmas cards that simply have a name in it? He took the mickey out of the few of us (I raised my hand) that send a 'newsletter' with our cards but then admitted he does the same and actually it's because people do like receiving them. Another a bit of research I've heard bandied about quite a bit at the moment is the 20% value gap when we give gifts. Apparently on average people rate gifts as worth (in financial terms) only 80% of what the buyer paid for them. Time Harford shared this little nugget too and went on to discuss why we should and shouldn't bother giving gifts. Personally I find the psychology of gift giving very interesting. Whether we find it easy or very difficult to buy a gift for someone I think says an awful lot about our relationship with them. I think it can be a useful barometer of a relationship and whether we want our need to invest more time in it rather than invest more time agonising over what to buy the person in question.