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Paper #1: Sentimental Value And Gift Giving: Givers' Fears of Getting it Wrong Prevents Them From Getting it Right
Julian Givi, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Jeff Galak, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Paper #2: Sometimes It's Okay to Give a Blender: Giver and Recipient Preferences for Hedonic and Utilitarian Gifts
Elanor F. Williams, Indiana University, USA
Emily Rosenzweig, University of Tulane, USA
Paper #3: The Quality Versus Quantity Trade-Off: A Dual-Risk Account For How Choices For The Self Versus Others Differ
Peggy Liu, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Ernest Baskin, St. Joseph's University, USA
Paper #4: When Giving Thanks Means More: The Impact of Publicly Versus Privately Sharing Gratitude in Gift-Giving
Lauren Grewal, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Mary Steffel, Northeastern University, USA
Dhruv Grewal, Babson College, USA
SESSION OVERVIEW
This past holiday season, the average U.S. adult planned to spend roughly $1,000 on gifts (American Research Group, Inc. 2016). Though undoubtedly with great intentions in mind, it seems that many of these givers missed their marks as UPS expected to ship 1.3 million gifts back to retailers on "National Returns Day" in early January (Farber 2017). Taken together, these statistics demonstrate that a) gift giving is a custom with major economic ramifications, and b) consumers often err in their gift choices. To that end, it is for good reason, then, that in recent years consumer researchers have devoted a considerable amount of time to studying gift giving - specifically asymmetries between givers and recipients. However, the field is only just beginning to develop an understanding of this tricky practice and there is still much to learn (Galak, Givi, and Williams 2016). Thus, in an effort to do just that, the papers in this session collectively ask: When and why do givers and recipients not see eye-to-eye?
The first two papers in the session examine asymmetries in the types of gifts givers give vs. the ones recipients prefer to receive. Specifically, Givi and Galak study givers' and recipients' views of sentimentally valuable gifts and gifts that match the explicit preferences of recipients. They demonstrate that givers overly-give the latter, relative to what recipients prefer, and that this arises because givers feel uncertain about whether sentimental gifts will be wellliked. Williams and Rosenzweig examine givers' and recipients' assessments of...