Gift giving has been studied by a variety of marketing researchers. Some researchers use survey methods to understand how consumers think about gifts and why they make the choices they do. Others try and analyze secondary data. They look at retailers’ point of sale systems to capture details of gift sales. Today, therefore, in the spirit of the holidays I will discuss a strain of research about which I know very little. Some scholars take a more anthropological perspective.
People And Gifts
Anthropologically focused scholars seek to embed gift giving in its wider social context. John F. Sherry Jr. reviews the whole phenomenon of gift giving to try and better understand what is happening.
This approach has a very different method than the sort of research that I typically review. Much academic research focuses on drilling down to thoroughly understand a relatively modest arena of life. Sherry and his colleagues’ line of research can be quite different. This is because it takes a much wider perspective and seeks to understand a large phenomenon at a much higher level. Such an approach often allows for very broad-based and interesting statements to be made. For instance, Sherry (1983, page 157) states that, “Gift giving, then, is properly a vehicle of social obligation and political maneuver”. It makes gift giving sound more interesting than giving some socks.
Gift Giving
To Sherry the nature of the gift tells us a lot about the relationships between the people on different sides of the gift.
A charting of the gift giving behavior of an individual as one moves through individual and family life cycles, and as one’s social network expands and contracts, would reveal this association. As an individual accumulates roles, the gift may indicate the relative importance of these roles.
Sherry, 1983, page 158
The upshot is that marketing research can give us some perspective into a wide range of things in our lives. The Frozen Elsa doll you are giving your daughter tells the observer a lot about your role in the family. What you get in return also says a lot about you. Hopefully, your gifts say something positive about you.
For more on gifts see here and here.
Read: John F. Sherry Jr. (1983) Gift Giving In Anthropological Perspective, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 10 (2), pages 157-168