Gift-Giving Tips From Scientists

Every holiday season, as we drive ourselves crazy at the mall or shopping online, soaked in the existential dread that comes from trying to find gifts our loved ones might appreciate, I think of the great writer and social critic James Baldwin, who wrote: “If the hope of giving/is to love the living,/the giver risks madness/in the act of giving.”

Perhaps social science can keep us sane. In an effort to help you with your gift-giving decisions, I offer three insights gleaned from recent research.

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Second, “regifting,” or giving away a gift someone else gave to you, though considered a social taboo, is not quite as ghastly as often thought. Researchers showed in the journal Psychological Science in 2012 that we overestimate how offended people will be to learn that their gift was passed on to someone else.

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The New York Times