Support with Gift Over Gab

A client or business associate who is emotionally distraught because of some problem in their life isn’t in the best mood for fruitful transactions with you. To help them through their upset, you might consider briefly chatting with them. Your objective would be to provide social support, even though you’re not directly solving their problem.
     But researchers at HEC Montréal, University at Albany, and Duke University advise you to instead give some moderately-priced, non-personalized item. The researchers’ studies indicate that the gift will surpass gab in helping a recipient feel better. In some of the studies, the past gift a recipient had in mind was merchandise, such as flowers. In other of the studies, the referenced gift was a meal the recipient could eat without the giver there—a combination of a material and an experiential present.
     The researchers’ explanation for the higher effectiveness of the gift is that in these circumstances, the recipient will consider a gift to be a greater sacrifice than would be a conversation and so is greater evidence of caring. A conversation consists of a mutual exchange with benefits to both parties, while a gift primarily benefits the recipient.
     Further, when provided a face-to-face conversation intended to be emotionally supportive, the recipient may feel a need to hide any negative reactions. This effort balances out the sacrifice made by the party initiating the conversation. But if the other party sends a gift, the recipient feels no need to hide reactions, so the recipient feels that the relative sacrifice by the giver is greater.
     I’ll add how, compared to gab, leaving a gift saves you time and avoids you getting enmeshed in personal details of the troubles. These characteristics of the situation may constitute an amendment to a general assumption that recipients appreciate a gift or conversation more when it’s highly personalized.
     An exception to the general finding of these studies concerns apologies. Perception that a gift is primarily intended as an apology leads to a more negative appraisal of the gift giver. This is because the recipient almost always wants to talk with the other party about the hurt feelings and therefore views the gift giving as evidence the gift giver misunderstands them. Receiving an apology gift also leads to a more negative appraisal of the item. This is because the gift reminds the recipient of the argument or hurt each time the gift is used or considered.

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Image at top of post based on photo by Ubaid E. Alyafizi from Unsplash