Christian Ardner
There’s plenty of received wisdom about the benefits of selflessly giving gifts. “It is better to give than to receive” — from, according to Acts 20:35, Jesus himself — is the gold standard.
“It is in giving that we receive” is a bit of a cannibalization of that same sentiment, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. From more recent times, there’s the noble “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
That’s Winston Churchill. There’s also “No one has ever become poor by giving,” penned by Anne Frank.
“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver,” Maya Angelou wrote, again underlining the great benefits of giving to the giver.
But actual studies on gift-giving conducted more systematically turn this received wisdom on its head.
The dark side of generosity
The work of UW-Madison marketing professor Evan Polman centers on consumer psychology. Several recent studies he’s conducted show that “there can be a dark side to generosity. It’s not 100 percent good,” says Polman.
Polman, who researches gift giving, says that most studies on the topic focus on what happens before gift giving. “It’s usually about the struggles and decision-making the giver goes through when thinking about what kind of gift to give someone,” says Polman.
He started to wonder what happens after gift giving. “We sort of assume there is reciprocity, that there is a ‘warm glow’ feeling, that people feel good about giving gifts to others,” Polman says.
But what did psychology really know about what happens after giving a gift?
The first of Polman’s studies set up a hypothetical situation where study participants — undergraduates involved in a romantic relationship — had to imagine themselves on a date with their romantic partner where they bought dinner for the partner. A control group was asked to imagine a date where they split the check.
The question posed by Polman was “Would having given a gift lead to looser standards?” That is, would buying dinner make it “more okay to do certain things” that could be perceived as cheating?
Participants were asked about a series of behaviors, “like dancing with someone else, talking on the phone with someone else,” says Polman. If the subject had paid for dinner, “these participants had these looser standards, they were more likely to see a behavior as not cheating on their partner.”
So, Polman suggests, after giving a gift, givers may behave in a slightly less courteous way to the recipient. “Not be mean to the other person, but perhaps tell a joke at their expense, or blow off plans they had made,” and not feel as bad about it, he says.
In the second study, Polman asked the subjects to imagine they had given a gift to a friend at a birthday party. (The control group imagined just attending the party.) Then they were asked to write an email to the birthday friend, cancelling plans they had previously made.
Those who had been asked to imagine giving a gift “did not write in as positive a tone in the email; they were more short with their friend,” says Polman. Those in the control group were more positive. The upshot is that when canceling the plan, they’re not as nice about it.
Do gift givers realize that they are acting less positively after having given a gift? Polman believes they’re not aware of the downside. “We do have some evidence that they’re not aware, because we asked the participants how positive they believe their emails were, and there’s no difference” he says, between them and the contol group. Yet the emails from the control group “are more positive.”
UW-Madison’s Evan Polman studies what happens after someone gives a gift: “We sort of assume...that people feel good about giving gifts to others.”
Polman’s third study is now under way. It’s more complex than the first two: Subjects are given $10 with which to buy a gift for a friend (control group buys a gift for themselves). Then they are asked questions regarding how they would behave with their friend in various situations. For instance, if sharing a ride with the friend, would they prefer to be dropped off first? Polman is looking for degrees of selfishness in the behaviors.
People tend to think a gift will strengthen a relationship, but, Polman notes, “after giving someone a gift, there is a risk the giver might behave a little less warmly, or more rudely. There can be a feeling of entitlement that goes along with gift giving.” As a result of feeling that warm glow, “people might actually feel it is also okay if they behave a little more selfishly.”
In a way, Polman reflects, giving a gift can “inoculate” the giver from ramifications or consequences. For instance, after having received a gift, it’s more difficult for the recipient to get angry at the giver, he says.
“I don’t mean to claim, nor do I believe, that the downsides of generosity outweigh the positive,” says Polman. But he does see the results of his studies so far as being a “good juxtaposition with how people usually think about gifts.”
Is there such a thing as selfless giving?
Jane Piliavin, UW-Madison professor emerita of sociology, spent her career studying altruism and helping behaviors. Piliavin says that despite the “warm glow” feeling that comes with charitable giving or any giving — that’s not true altruism. Altruism is more than simple helping of others, she explains: “With true altruism, there is no expectation of a reward, and altruistic giving often comes at some cost to the self.”
Holiday gift-giving as Americans know it today, on the other hand, “comes with an expectation of return. In fact, people can get ticked off if their gift is not reciprocated,” says Piliavin. This goes all the way down to “even if it is just a card, it’s a recognition.” The expectation is there: I did something on your birthday, you need to do something on mine.
The gift of money when people are in “dire straits” can be an example of altruism, says Piliavin, if it’s a true gift and you don’t expect to be paid back.
Donating money to a charity in someone’s name can provide a psychological upshot to the giver as well as the “recipient,” but again, Piliavin notes this is not true altruism.
“There are Jewish writings about altruism and charitable activities,” she notes. Tzedakah is commonly interpreted to mean “charity”; Maimonides broke it into eight levels. “One of the highest levels is to give a gift that the recipient will never know you gave, and no one else will know that you gave it either,” says Piliavin. “That can be, I think, real altruism.” In that instance, there is no actual reward to the giver “aside from the warm glow you get from knowing you have done something good.”
There are people who argue there can be no such thing as altruism, Piliavin says, because that warm glow itself is a reward: “But we hardly ever get to that point. Usually someone knows. If you give to a charitable organization, they know. They write you back and thank you. And there is that tax deduction.”
Piliavin thinks the healthiest way to be a giving person is to give “without resentment. If you feel pressured, that’s not a very healthy way to give.”
Yet pressure to give gifts is everywhere, especially at this time of year. Piliavin cites the appearance of Christmas holiday merchandise in stores before Halloween. “It underscores the crass nature of what Christmas has become. Now it is all this pressure to spend as much as you can. Sometimes it’s, ‘Look at how rich I am and I can afford to give you this lovely present.’”
Closer to selfless giving is when the giver tries to match the gift to something he or she knows the person likes. “One Christmas my granddaughters gave me dark chocolate. It wasn’t expensive, but it was thoughtful, because they know I like dark chocolate.” Now that there are all sorts of registries and online gift wish lists, giving a gift the recipient wants is easy to do, and it is perhaps selfish not to consult them, Piliavin suggests.
“I almost think that people who go ahead and buy something that isn’t on the registry are not being very helpful. They’re saying, ‘I don’t care what they say they want, I want to give them this.’”
The nature of altruism, Piliavin reflects, is that “you never quite get there. That does not mean that doing good things is worthless. That’s how the world goes around. If we did not have people doing volunteer activities and giving blood and so forth, we would have a much worse society.”
