Discussion
The results of Study 2 provide further evidence that gift-givers
and gift-recipients disagree about the link between gift price and
gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation. Givers anticipated that
recipients would appreciate more expensive gifts, but gift-recipients
did not base their feelings of appreciation on how much the
gift cost.
Although these results offer external validity (i.e., these are actual
gifts purchased and received by the participants), they have
some limitations, including a lack of control over the type of gifts
included in our sample. The gifts recalled by gift-givers may have
been fundamentally different from those recalled by gift-recipients.
Further, one alternative explanation for why gift-givers, but
not gift-recipients, associate gift price with feelings of appreciation
could be dissonance reduction. People who have purchased more
expensive gifts might be more likely to associate price with appreciation
after making the gift purchase. Finally, there is an information
asymmetry between gift-givers and gift-recipients in our first
two studies, such that gift-givers know the price of the gift for certain,
but recipients do not.
To address these issues of recall bias, dissonance reduction, and
information asymmetry in Study 3, we experimentally manipulated
role and gift size, asking participants to imagine giving or
receiving either a relatively small gift or a relatively large gift. In
addition, we test our prediction regarding mediation—that gift-givers
assume gift price leads to feelings of appreciation because gift
price signals thoughtfulness to gift-recipients.