What is The Psychology of Gifting

Humans are social creatures, we were made to create communities and live within them, that’s why we seek acceptance and love, that’s where the psychology of gifting comes.

We can describe the psychology of gifting simply as:

An act that allows us to communicate our feelings and appreciation for others. Also some sociologists think that we only give gifts to people we want relationships with, so gifting has different aims that all are based on psychological motives, and these motives will be mentioned in this article.

  • Showing love:

The theory of “symbolic interactionism”, argues that people communicate through symbols. For example, men buy flowers for their partners when trying to express love because flowers can symbolise feelings of love with their fragrant beauty.

  • Symbolic communication:

We attach symbolic meanings to gifts AKA matter that’s why when we get a gift from someone we feel that we mean something to that person, and if we didn’t like a gift we feel frustrated, not because of the gift itself, but we feel that they didn’t care much about us and what we like.

  • Receive something in return:

Modern sociology claims that gift giving creates something called a “debt-balance”, so to prevent negative feelings, gifts must be repaid creating a cycle of gift giving.or else you’ll be interpreted as someone who doesn’t appreciate the relationship with others.

  • Gift for nothing but a gift:

Some people are givers by nature, they give gifts with no expectations of getting something in return. Their only reward is the happiness they see in the eyes of others. This is the case when giving a child a gift.

  • To attract someone:

A study found that men who were more generous with gifts had better success at attracting partners, so some people can use gifts as a way of attracting the hearts of other potential partners.

So if this is the psychology of gifting, how can we pick the perfect gift for each motive? Here are some tips:

  • Always choose something special:

Giving someone a gift aims at making them feel special, so that doesn’t mean the gift should be the biggest or most expensive, but it has to be special. To have meaning for them, to be related to their interests or reminds them of a beautiful memory.

  • Avoid stereotypes:

Easy, cliche gifts are not as nice and attractive as the gifts that say you made an effort. So you need to collect more knowledge about that person. What they love, what they appreciate, and be creative and get the gift accordingly.

  • Creativity wins:

You know what? You can get a cliche gift but with a special touch of yours you can turn it special and significant. You can write a beautiful card or note on the gift or combine two gifts together so the receiver can feel the effort made by you.

And if you want an amazing gift, a creative one, or even a classic gift you can always find all what you look for in a gift on Joi, just visit the website and choose from a huge variety of gifts for all purposes and everyone.

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