Our favorite gift expert is back, Dr. Julian Givi, an associate professor who studies gift giving for a living. Dr. GIvi has answers to all of your gift returning dilemmas. Is it ok to return everything you don’t like? Do you need to tell the giver that you’re returning the item? And, is it ever OK to re-gift a present? His answers might surprise you.
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Episode Transcript
Hey there everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
So you've opened all of your Christmas and holiday gifts,
and sure you had some things you loved, but almost
certainly you had.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Some things that sucked. That absolutely sucks. Let's just say it. Okay,
some of us had a disappointing Christmas.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes, and so look, we have I always have questions
about what the right thing to do is in that
situation a when you open it, even in front of
the gift giver, or when you know you're going to
want to return it. So we have the expert on gifts,
Julian Give, an associate professor there at West Virginia, and
he actually studies gift giving for a living, and so
(00:41):
we had him on earlier to talk about what you
should give.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
But now receiving can be even harder than giving.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Sometimes and professor giving good to have you back here.
Let me start period point blank. Number one.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Is it okay ever to regift?
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Yeah, so I think we're talking the research. Actually the
research suggests yes it is because one of the findings
there is that as as regifters, we think that it's
going to kind of hurt the person's feelings more than.
Speaker 6 (01:10):
It actually does. Never re regift.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
So I think, you know, regifting, it's it's one of
those things. Everyone knows that it happens, right, Sometimes we
can even tell whenever whenever we receive one. So the
research suggests that you know, it's it's maybe it's one
of those things where it's it's kind of maybe not
the greatest, but it's it's sort of less bad, I.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
Think than than we as consumers, we as.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Gififts, you should you always try to hide the fact.
You shouldn't be honest about it. Should you that you
regifted somebody's gift? Should you?
Speaker 6 (01:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:38):
I think I think naturally right that there's no research
on this, but I think, right if we if we're
just you know, talking about social norms, right, I think
there's a pretty strong social norm that says, you know,
I don't just open it up and regift, you know,
regifted the next day, right in front of the person, right.
Speaker 6 (01:51):
So I think I think people, Yeah, people generally.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Do tend to realize that, right, and they follow the norm,
you know, try to and you try to not only
do it in front of the person, give it to
someone who has no idea who these two people, you know,
so they go mash right, send to someone in you know,
in Vermont, right, as opposed to you know, Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Right. That's very important because you don't want to have
the person who gave you the gift walk into someone
else's home and see the gift they gave you in
someone else's home.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
That would be terrible, awful.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I'm curious. I'm thinking back to the days. I'm going
to call my brother out. He does not have a
poker face, and when he opened a gift he didn't like,
it was obvious to everyone, to the point where my
mom would get upset with him, like, Eric, you need
to put on a better face when you open someone's
gift that you don't like. How important is it to
feign that you like something even when you don't.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
Yeah, I think I think there is right.
Speaker 5 (02:43):
That is, it is somewhat important, right because the person
is making it generally making an effort to give you something.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
But it's one of those things where it's like people
really do seem to struggle with that.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Some people are really good at.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
It, and some people it's right, there's people who we
all know that are just like they're the person who's
not good at disclosing or at hiding what they do
if they like something. And so what I'll tell you
is it's interesting is that research research shows that there's
three kind of avenues that people take when they receive
something they don't like. So first they either just kind
of disclose it kind of sounds like your brother, right,
(03:14):
either either intentionally or unintentionally. It's just like yeah, like
and I'm sure right, this maybe happens when you're very
close to the person. You feel comfortable, like you know,
what on earth did you just give me? Right, So
disclosing is one avenue. The other thing people try to
do is we do try to hide it.
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
You've maybe heard the term don't look the gift horse
in the mouth, right, you try to hide it, you know,
act appreciative, right, and that that's certainly a good thing
to do if you can. And the third thing people
often do is is we try to reevaluate it.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
So maybe like in the moment, right, we try to
just get through that moment. And then you know, rather
than kind of allowing to like harm our relationship with
the person, right, we kind of think like, okay, let
me try to think about what it is that they
were thinking when they gave me this right, and maybe
that will allow you realize, oh, like I did mention
that you know, I like, you know, horses or whatever,
and that's what you know, that's why gave me the
picture of the horse, even if in the moment you're like,
(04:01):
why did you give me that picture of the horse?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Right?
Speaker 6 (04:03):
You know, something along those lines, right.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
So a lot of different strategies that people try to
do around this sort of delicate dance when we receive
an I don't want to undesired gift.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Okay, as the rule for returning, similar to regifting, do
we not want I mean, some people give gift receipts
with the understanding that's fine, but generally speaking, do you
also want to keep the fact that you returned it
from the person who gave it to you?
Speaker 6 (04:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (04:28):
So's it's really very similar to the whole to the
regifting thing, where on average, we as giver, sorry, as recipients,
we think it's going to be more offensive to the
person than it really is. But again, I think, you know,
sort of social norms dictate like, hey, you don't want
to like rub in their face like, hey, look I
have returned this thing, right, So I think generally the
same pattern is the same. And you know as gift
(04:50):
as you know people who give gifts, at the end
of the day, like we do want the person to
receive something that they like, right, And so it's not
gonna nearly hurt my feelings as much as you might
think just because you know, you turned one, you know,
a medium for for for a large, right for the
shirt or whatever it may be.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
But what if you switched the shirt completely, right, I
take the shirt back and I got shoes or you're right,
that kind of a thing.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
It's not just a size issue.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Yeah, yeah, no, So we did.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
We did look at that actually in one of our studies,
and what we find is that whenever, whenever it's just
like we did we kind of separated things in the
broadly either like preference space returns or like usability based returns, right,
And so whenever it's like a usability based so basically
like a shirt doesn't fit right there, everyone kind of
agrees like, yeah, you know you should return it as
a recipient. I feel fine returning it, right, But whenever
(05:36):
it comes to the sort of more preference based things
like okay, you've got me the green shirt, I wanted
the red one. There is, where as recipients were kind
of hesitant to return, but the giver is like, no,
look you want the red one.
Speaker 6 (05:47):
It's it's not as bad as you might think. Go
ahead and go ahead and return.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, I feel like you know what I was trying
to think any time where I felt, I don't know,
slight offense about the gift I gave. And I think
the worst part was not even someone can return it.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Totally get that.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
But when someone just leaves it and doesn't even pick
it up again, and doesn't bring it to their room
or doesn't take it with them, You're like, wow, you
not only hate you just ignored it and never even
bothered to take it with you.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Or I've seen that happen mostly kids, but it's Oh.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I like Aesop products too. I just haven't gotten around.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
No, but when you see they're not being used and
I'd rather, I'd rather have someone return it. And I
think is that I think from the perspective of being
the gift giver, wouldn't you always rather someone enjoy the
money you spent, regardless of if it's the gift you
gave them or something that they returned it for, to
actually enjoy yeah, I one.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Think that that's part of it, right, No one likes that,
you know, there's this sort of some cost effect you
guys may have. Basically, we don't like spending money and
having it just go to waste, right, So I think
that's one hundred percent. What's part of what's going on
here is like, look, I spend fifty dollars on that thing.
If you don't want it, that's fine, but like donate it,
you know, return it for something else, even regifted, right,
(07:10):
Like just get some usefulness out of it, so that
way my money is hasn't gone to ways.
Speaker 6 (07:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Is that something you mentioned?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Returning and regifting is one thing, but is it a
good idea to.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
It?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Seems manipulative, But to make sure you let the person
who gave you the gift see you using it at
one point or another, maybe where that you don't love
the jacket, but I'm aware at one time because that
person gave it to me.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
At least I can get that out of the way.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
That sounds terrible, No, We've all done it.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
Yeah, it's certainly. It's one of those things.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Right.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
It's funny when you talk the gift, give it. You
know people about gift giving. You pick up on these
things and then you realize like, oh wow, like yeah, this
is a lot of thing that a lot of people do,
and that's it they don't. I think that is one
of those ones, right. I think it may be manipulated it,
but is it. I mean it's it's kind of like
telling a white lie, right, Whereas if you're doing it
out of to make the person feel good about themselves
and so that's not the worst thing in the world
if you do. And I think it's something that everyone does,
(08:09):
so I want to feel too down about it.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I actually wanted to ask you about this to Julian
because I think they did a Saturday Night Live episode
about it, and we watched it last year because my
mom always does this and now my daughter say, I
do it too, before or as they're opening the gift.
If you don't like it, you can totally take it
back and you start like diminishing the gift that you
are giving them in anticipation of the fact that they
(08:33):
may not like it.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And I find myself doing it too.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
But I grew up with a mom who did that,
and I was just does that affect the recipient's experience
of receiving the gift.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Now there's like extra pressure to say no. Of course
I like it.
Speaker 6 (08:48):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
And again another one of those things right where you
think about it's like everyone does this right, And I
think we as givers, we do it a lot when
we're when we feel like we're taking some kind of
a risk rate. That's generally whenever it comes up right,
Like I know you talked to me about the one
of you had given concert tickets to your child. Right,
for that, you're probably not saying it right. It's whenever
you're you're going out in the live right, the kind
of glamar concer you're not or you're not you're not
(09:11):
saying that right. But for these ones where you're feeling,
oh man, I'm really under pressure here if this doesn't
go right. And I think the nice thing about is
that when you do it, it kind of relates back to
what we were talking about before with setting expectations right right,
because because what you did in there is you're basically
making them think like, oh, this is going to be
a horrible gift.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Then they open up their go it's not not too bad, right.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
So either on one hand, you know, maybe it could
really make them sort of you're not buying the expectations.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I hate it.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
I hate the expectations. Gain.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I know my gift is better because I told you
it's shitty.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I'm going to wrap all the gifts so loosely and
terribly now so that everyone has these expectations of them
being awful, and then they're like, wow, this is so
much better than I thought. What is your take on
thank you notes? Are they important? Are they necessary? Can
(10:06):
you just say thank you? Can you text it thank you?
Do you have to write a thank you card?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Out?
Speaker 6 (10:11):
Yeah? So there.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
I mean, this is definitely a social norms thing, right,
It's going to so heavily depend on the situation, right,
Wedding gifts, you know, funeral gifts, right, those kinds of
things pretty set in stone that you know, go ahead,
send an actual thank you card? Right, But I think
for a lot of these things, you know, you know,
a FaceTime or a text or whatever. You know, if
someone sends you a gift from across the country, right,
give them a call, say say thanks.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
Right. It doesn't have to be anything formal, but I
think at least.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
Minimum, showing them that and you know what I will
say is that, you know, it's kind of funny is
that for for wedding gifts and talking to people about
about like when they receive whenever they give wedding gifts
and then the recipient doesn't send like thank you notes.
They're like, man like I spent like twohundred dollars on
this thing from my net, Like they don't send anything back,
Like come on, you know, so people do actually know
(10:58):
kind of kind of remember that and think about it,
maybe more.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Than more than you might think.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
We had someone that we don't know send us flowers
and I didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We didn't even know how to respond back to them.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It was more like an And we actually got like
a month later through a third party asking if we
had received the flowers, which was, in my opinion, a
little slap on the wrist for not finding a way
to say thank you. And I'm not saying we weren't
wrong or I wasn't wrong, but it was a reminder,
oh wow, that was important to that person that we acknowledge.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
But you know what, you know, Julian, I.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Do this because having yes weddings or any sort of
surgery where you get like an influx of gifts. I
understand how overwhelming it is to then have to write
all those thank you notes. So I always tell people
when I give them a gift, don't you.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Dare write me a thank you note.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
That's part of my gift to them is that they
do not have to write me a thank you note.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
How how is that received? Is that something that people do?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I just know how taxing it is to sit down
and write all the It just takes away from some
of the joy of the gift itself.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Yeah, And I think, just more broadly, right in the
gift giving around, right, having helping save recipients work, right, Like,
whether it's writing thank you notes or it's you know,
here's you know, fifty dollars, you have to spend the
rest of the fifty you know, you have to spend
your own rest of your money to go get the
one hundred dollars item, right, something like that.
Speaker 6 (12:19):
Right.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
I think generally recipients aren't going to respond favorably to that,
right everyone. You know, we like when people save us time,
save us work. So I think that's that's a nice thing.
I'm sure your recipients do appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Julian.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Last thing here, just as a reminder of the season,
if you will, you're a guy that studies this stuff.
We've just got done with the whole gift giving season
past Christmas, but just for all of us, give us
a little perspective and just remind us, Yes, we stressed
about giving the gifts, we stressed one we received the gifts.
But just can you button this up and give just
a little perspective about why we all did this and
(12:53):
what we should really be taking out of what we
just went through in the holiday season.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
So yeah, thing like you said, as gift or is,
we do stress a lot, and the research is pretty
adamant showing that we stress more than we need to.
And I think at the end of the day, recipients,
you know, what we want out of a gift, right
at the end of the day, what we want is
we want feeling appreciated. We want to, you know, feel
closer to the person that gave us. We want to
feel loved and cared for and all those things. And
(13:19):
I think you know you don't have to, you know,
hit home runs all the time to do that, right,
Certainly you can hit a few singles and doubles, maybe
one home run for you know, per Christmas is or
per you know, per holiday is a good idea, But
at the end of the day, you know, gift giving
really is about, you know, growing closer to each other
and showing love and appreciation. I think, you know, most
(13:39):
of us do that most of the time. So I
want to stress nearly as much as you might.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Think that's a really good perspective that it's not. It's
more about how you act each and every day of
the year and less about exactly what kind of gives
you give. So we appreciate all of this perspective, professor give.
This is something where we all go through it each
and every year, and yet we still stress. It seems
(14:07):
like the same amount and to the point where you
get stressed just anticipating, Hey, Chris, this season. I was
trying to actually soppen what you typically say. But yes,
he starts saying I hate Christmas around November one of
every year, and it continues through January one.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Because of what he describes the stress we all put
on it, and we just freak everybody out. So we appreciate
you buttoning that up and reminding us what the season
was really about.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
And for everybody listening.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, fellas, we're gonna have Professor give you back for
Valentine's Day.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
He's gonna help you with those gifts too. For us
to give me.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Really, it's been an absolute pleasure of getting to know you.
Your wealth of knowledge is so impressive. Thank you, Thank
you so much. Hope you had a great holiday and
hopefully we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
All right, Yeah, thank you you guys as well, and
I'm sure you'll do an awesome job giving gifts.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
This here,
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