Christmas - new year gifts can sometimes lose in substance when they boil down to a gift package put together quickly done well done, despite the endless lists, of the long queues in the shops and all the money you spent.
but it is possible to proceed otherwise. Scientists have studied for years the practice of the gift, and developed to achieve some techniques so this tradition is source of vitality. The following tips will guide you to find gifts that have meaning, both for the one who provides that whoever receives.
"most importantly, in the exchange of gifts, it's to show that you understand the person and that you care really to it", said Ryan Howell, psychologist at the State University of San Francisco and co-founder of
Beyondthepurchase.org of
.
this implies in general to tailor the gift to the recipient. As Ryan Howell wrote
Live Science
website, studies have proven that people wanting to offer
well found gifts bought never the same for two of their friends. Even if the friends in question did not, were not likely to compare their gifts and appreciate them just as much.
should also not neglect the practical side.
a study dating from 2014
, published in the specialist magazine The
, Journal of Consumer Research
, shows that it focuses too often on the urge to pleasure, and not enough on how the recipient will be able to use his gifts. In another study, subjects tended to move towards enticing gifts but impractical (for example, a dinner in a excellent restaurant far away), and away from the more accessible but less desirable options (for example, a dinner in a local restaurant, but of lesser fame). On the other hand, recipients of the said gift preferred the more practical gift.
in other words, avoid to choose gifts based on what we would like to offer, but rather by what the recipient really wants to receive.
offer, it is "a way to see another for what it really is and what he wants," said Allison Pugh, sociologist specializing in the study of consumption at the University of Virginia.
make a gesture to friends or a charity touches
the notion of happiness
. According an article published in 2009 by the "Harvard Business School", it seems that happy people give more to charity and make a donation makes happier,
indeed leading a virtuous
.
, happiness generated by the charity is greater when the gift encourages social exchanges.
a study published in 2013,
magazine International Journal of Happiness and Development shows that donors felt better after making a gift through a friend or a loved one in an anonymous way. So try the experience to make a donation to the poor on behalf of a friend. It will perhaps make you radiate, one and one.
new brand-new objects straight out of the shop do not always represent the best solution.
a study published in March 2015
University magazine The Journal of Marketing
stresses a predilection for the handmade objects to offer to those we love. People are even willing to pay up to 17% more expensive for handmade gifts. This study also suggests that hand gifts are generally considered to be a most beautiful proof of love. What is the intention first of those offering gifts.
family heirlooms can also provide a good breeding ground.
a 2009
study, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, suggests that, even when families send very impersonal heritage - silver-, the symbolic value of this financial capital exceeds its cash value.
Conversely, do not panic if your child's Christmas list looks like the complete catalog of Toys R'Us. A small dose of factory-made gifts can sometimes help children connect with their peers.
"children's toys are constitutive of a true social cement," notes Allison Pugh, who observes the way children position themselves against consumption. "By this I mean that it is almost a language that is clean".
having the same 'things' helps to establish common bases, phenomenon which, according to the sociologist, should reassure parents reluctant to disappoint their children on Christmas day. It is not provided to encourage materialism, grade it, but rather to admit that material possessions can have rewarding odds.
the good news is that children have a great capacity for adaptation: those who do not have latest toys or games fashionable discover often by a circuitous, allowing them to engage all the same.
if there is a rule of thumb for gifts, it is this. After the results obtained by researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, recipients of seats in concert or subscriptions to the zoo, for example, feel more
connected to the person who makes them this gift
, compared with those who receive objects. The donor and the recipient need not necessarily live the whole experience to enjoy this wonderful connection.
,
however an article published recently
by scientists at the University of Washington in St. Louis (Missouri), and the National University of Seoul raises a major problem: not realizes more often than not that intangible gifts represent a much better choice than a nice knot on a package. According the results of their study, a part of this problem lies in the fact that we hesitate to make gifts of this type to persons whose one feels very close.
"risk taking is yet minimal," said Ryan Howell. Those who expect to receive an object look forward most of the time to an empirical gift. Conversely, those who expected something else often prove very disappointed by a material gift.
offer an experience of life takes even more meaning for children. According to Allison Pugh, spend a moment with a child creates memories that will last much longer than a simple toy.
"If the gifts are intended to express and to build relationships of love, one of the most beautiful ways to do is to give of his time", said the sociologist. "It is always a gift extremely strong."
this article published originally on the Huffington Post American, has been translated by Mathilde Montier for Fast for Word.
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