The shadow side of social gift-giving: miscommunication and failed gifts

Communication Research Trends, Sept, 2006 by J.D. Sunwolf

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

--Porchia (1969)

1. Gifting as Dilemma: Gifts Do Not Speak for Themselves

From the day you are born until the day you die, you stand in the midst of gift-giving and gift-receiving dilemmas. Every relationship you will ever have offers the possibility of communicating through social objects (transformed by the gifting process). Further, every gift you receive requires that you attempt to decode the intended message of the giver, then challenges you with an added interpersonal burden of appropriate gift reciprocation. Unfortunately, gift objects do not speak for themselves. They require decoding.

Today, social gifting behaviors stand at an intriguing scholarly intersection--where the paths of communication, culture, social psychology, philosophy, and marketing meet. While people exchange gifts interpersonally, they are increasingly influenced in their object-choices and gratitude-reactions by mass media marketing. The culture of gift giving and receiving is a rich arena for our academic attention, as people are increasingly reporting stress, disappointment, anxiety, and misunderstandings when they anticipate or participate in social gifting.

As a form of social exchange, gifts both create and re-create relationships. The idealized gift, however, requires the union of the right object with the right person at the right time--a challenging social intersection, at best. Berking (1999) argued that gift giving is a primal phenomenon of society through which communities reproduce themselves, while Cheal (1988) claimed that scholars have neglected an opportunity to probe the manner in which gifts organize both intimacy and community between donors and recipients. The language of gifts is tightly woven into our everyday social interactions. Belk (1979) identified interpersonal communication, in fact, as one of the primary functions of gift giving (together with socialization or social and economic exchange).

Giving gifts functions to establish, define, repair, maintain, or enhance interpersonal relationships, yet has been largely neglected by interpersonal scholars. Consumer scholars Sherry, McGrath, and Levy (1993) recognized that gift exchange may be one of the few remaining crucial social incidents of significance, testing relational ties on the marketplace. While Komter and Vollegergh (1997) have suggested that gift giving functions as the cement of social relationships, Sherry et al. (1993) maintained that relational gifting may also forge a painful juncture between separately-held personal myths about givers and receivers. Failed gifts, in fact, can trigger relational trauma. Givers may be reluctant, receivers ungrateful, or occasions poorly-defined. As a result, relational gift-giving and receiving may be accompanied by high levels of anxiety.

Gifts speak volumes about our relational perceptions and expectations, yet gift behaviors have been primarily investigated by marketing scholars. This is surprising, in light of the prominence of interpersonal gift-giving messages throughout the relational lifespan: in families, in friendships, in romances, and between working colleagues. Bloom (1999) points out that we are vulnerable when we pay attention to our gifting histories; to talk about the gifts we give or get requires that we actually talk about ourselves and our relationships.

2. The Communication Culture of Social Gifts

This review considers, at the outset, the communication culture of gifts, with a focus on the intricate pattern of messages between givers and receivers. (No attempt is made in this article to cover intercultural, organizational, esoteric, or charitable gift-giving practices, all gift-giving events worthy of our scholarly attention.) This article focuses on studies that have highlighted "miscommunication" as an outcome of the gifting transaction. In addition, the neglected role of gift receiver is illuminated, in a model that illustrates psychosocial "noises" that interfere with intended gift messages (Figure 1, Sunwolf, in press).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

A. Using a Receiver-Centered Model of Relational Gift Communication

This Psychosocial Noise Model of Gift Giving describes receiver-centered variables that explain miscommunication during interpersonal gift giving. A gift-receiver's personal "psychosocial-noise" can cloud or distort the symbolic message(s) that were intended by a gift-giver. Figure 1 illustrates a few of the specific noises through which a gift message is filtered by a receiver: (a) expectations; (b) self-concept; (c) relational perceptions; (d) assumptions; (e) relational goals; (f) gifting history; (g) gender; (h) cultural values; (i) social roles; and (j) attributions.

The emphasis of prior research on giver-centered variables has marginalized the recipient's role during relational gift-exchanges. Representative studies of this giver-focus are summarized in Table 1 on pages 5-8, offering descriptions of the participants of the studies, the variables studied, as well as the findings. At the same time, Table 2 on page 9 offers useful exemplars of some of the receiver-focused studies available to date. Otnes, Lowrey, and Kim (1993) have complained that most gift-exchange research has been, in fact, "giver-centric." Since any giver's decision-making processes, goals, or strategies will vary (depending, in part, on the recipient), we need to expand our knowledge about receiver-centered gifting variables. As Rucker, Balch, Higham, and Schenter (1992) point out, research consistently supports an everyday intuition that not all gifts are successful. However clear any giver may feel about the meaning intended behind a gift-choice--once the gift is offered, a receiver faces the communication challenge of gift-interpretation.