Comments on: Christmas Signaling

By: Sebastian Hagen

Sebastian Hagen — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:15:45 +0000

One of my relatives does consistently give cash (and only cash) to me and at least one other family member on Christmas, though we don’t do the same in reverse. In my experience this works out well for all people involved.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 11:44:39 +0000

Note that even when people give out a wish-list, it tends to be an actual list, and not just a single item that they want from each person. (I recall a South Park episode where Cartman requests a specific gift from each friend, in order to avoid the duplicate gift phenomenon, but of course this just reinforces Cartman’s image as very crass.) I agree with jimrandomh’s point that a gift retains an association with the giver in many cases, but I’d also want to stress that this is a two-way phenomenon. The recipient is more likely to think about the giver when using or seeing or thinking about the gift, but the giver is also more likely to think about her connection to the recipient on seeing the recipient using the gift. This feeling of connection is strengthened when the giver specifically chooses the gift. Presumably, the effect is strongest if the giver chose the gift from the universe of all possible gifts, but I suspect that it’s still pretty strong even if there were only two permissible choices. If I were to choose between a stylish sweater and an iPod for a friend, then I would at least be reminded of my role in my friend’s life each time I see her with either the sweater or iPod, and she would be reminded of my role in her life each time she uses one or the other. However, if she had just told me to buy the sweater, or told me to buy the iPod, this would deny me any agency in her life (at least with respect to this one salient choice), and (provided our relationship is a good one) thinking about my agency in her life is a benefit for both of us.

By: Julian Morrison

Julian Morrison — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:19:51 +0000

I was going to say: I wonder if the role of specific gifts is “forcing fun” – but I see Lewis Powell has preempted me. Perhaps it might be even better stated as “denying a humdrum use”. Nobody wants their present to be spent paying the gas bill.

One interesting phenomenon in my experience that supports this: when someone has a big personal goal in mind they often do ask for money – and get it.

By: Lewis Powell

Lewis Powell — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:06:16 +0000

One possibility is that prudence/practicality constrains the ways in which people consider it appropriate to spend money on oneself. If you are of modest means, you are judged harshly for purchasing an iPod instead of saving money or paying your credit card bills, etc.

This applies to spending money received as a gift, because money is fungible.

However, someone of modest means isn’t judged harshly simply for possessing an iPod, they are judged harshly for spending money on an iPod. The institution of gift-giving (including the social pressure not to give money, and the acceptability of drawing up wish-lists) provide a way for someone of modest means to acquire the iPod (or whatever) without being subject to harsh judgment for purchasing it. You can’t put “paying down my credit card debt” on your wish-list, and even if you did, people would feel social pressure not to give you money or pay your credit card debt for you.

I think that this can go a long way towards explaining the phenomenon of christmas lists or birthday lists, but does not do as much for wedding/baby registries. I guess Eliezer’s suggestion about the affective features of a gift (over money) sounded pretty good, so maybe that can be part of the explanation too.

By: mtraven

mtraven — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:47:58 +0000

You know, people have actually thought the this before, and deeply, but unfortunately the bias of the field of economics -- that completely unsupported supposition that people are rational, individualistic maximizers of simplistic utility measures -- makes this work invisible. If you want to understand how people actually behave, you need to go to a field that studies actual humans. For instance, see Marcel Mauss's seminal anthropological study, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies or Lewis Hyde's reintpretation and popularization of the same ideas.

By: Katja Grace

Katja Grace — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:44:13 +0000

The giver and the receiver’s motives aren’t the same:
The giver is the one who wants to signal closeness to other person (this is all they can hope for).
The receiver has other signaling to consider:
1. the item given has signaling potential in other relationships.
2. friends pretending to be closer than they are to you isn’t as much of a concern to most people as far as I can tell, more important is whether other people are understanding the signals they’re trying to send.

-> Better to get the items you want and signal with it in the relationships that matter most to you already than to test the strength of all your friendships/acquaintances. e.g. Would prefer to have book that will look good on their shelf than to have accurate information that Emily doesn’t know their taste in books.
So they thwart the giver’s attempts to signal by giving them instructions, which the giver then has an excuse to follow (this isn’t necessarily bad for the giver – they may have only wanted to signal because it would have been embarrassing not to when they could, but to be prevented is easier).

By: Bill Harshaw

Bill Harshaw — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:23:06 +0000

Lots of variables at work. I’m old enough to remember an aunt giving me hand knitted mittens or socks, which I had to lie and say I liked in my mandatory thank you notes, while other aunts/uncles might give a couple crisp $1 bills (yes, that old). Meanwhile my mother might give her siblings home-canned chicken. (Yes, money was tight.) So one assumption likely is: we’re in the money economy and the exchanges and wish lists are for bought presents, commercial products. And both giver and receiver are essentially equal.

In part, it’s an information problem–how well do giver and giftee know each other, their desires and needs, how much do they value efficiency in exchanges, how secure or insecure in the relationship are they, how much contact do they have during the year. etc. It’s also a risk problem, giving and receiving presents can be risky. My posting a wish list is itself a gift to potential givers with limited time, limited imagination, etc., saying I understand their anxieties and concerns and I won’t ask them to know me better than I know myself. (Or maybe, it’s also distancing–I don’t want the risk of receiving a present that’s incongruous with my self image.

By: Silas

Silas — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:48:46 +0000

I’ve answered this question before, Robin_Hanson: Part of the benefit of a gift is to give something the recipient *didn’t realize* they would benefit from in the first place. For that reason, it’s impossible to write a wishlist for it. When people are too lazy to find out this “perfect gift”, they just ask the recipient what they want.

By: Benja Fallenstein

Benja Fallenstein — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:34:21 +0000

Okay, so my pet theory does not work for predicting wedding gifts vs. money — it’s not clear (to me) that buying the gifts oneself shows more adjustment to needs than giving money. It could, through extra time spent and perhaps being responsible for specific gifts on the list, but that argument doesn’t seem enough to confidently say that’s what’s going on.

By: John Maxwell

John Maxwell — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:28:49 +0000

Warrigal’s answer explains why nothing > giving cash, but it doesn’t explain why giving gifts > nothing.