Material Gifts as Relationship Mnemonics: Why More Material Gifts Are Given Than Wanted?

How do people choose material and experiential purchases when these purchases are intended as gifts for others? Following van Boven and Gilovich’s (2003) initial distinction between material and experiential purchases centering on “people’s intentions when investing in their happiness”, the present research examines how people’s interpersonal motives affect their choice between material gifts and experiential gifts. Although recent research supports the superior effectiveness of experiential gifts at inducing receiver’s satisfaction (Chun and Hiang 2016) and fortifying relationship between the receiver and the giver (Chan and Mogilner 2017), givers may not have such foresight. In particular, material gifts may appear more suitable than experiential gifts to symbolize the giver’s ingratiating action as a physical, visible and durable mnemonic in the receiver’s surroundings. This mnemonic, however, may be viewed in different light by a giver versus a receiver. In social reciprocation, people tend to egocentrically believe that their salient input to a favor can induce feelings of appreciation, whereas receivers tend to overlook the others’ input and focus on the benefits that they can derive from the favor (Flynn and Adams 2009; Zhang and Epley 2009). Moreover, when reminded of the others’ favor, the receiver tends to feel indebted, pressured, and obliged to reciprocate, a sentiment not as desirable as the giver may believe (Belk and Coon 1993; Greenberg 1980; Emerson 1976). Therefore, we theorize that givers tend to endow receivers with more material gifts (vs. experiential gifts) than receivers want them, because givers overestimate the extent to which material gifts facilitate bonding as mnemonics of their kind act, compared with receivers’ prediction. We present five studies and a registered replication to test these predictions.