5 Ways to Give Better Gifts, According to Science

Holiday shopping and gift-giving are hallmarks of the season for many of us. But that’s not to say the tradition doesn’t come without its stresses.

What does your sister, spouse, or parent actually want? Will the packages arrive on time? Are you spending too much or enough?

Step one in taking the stress out of holiday gift-giving — or at least some of it — is remembering that the ritual is about more than the sweaters, socks, new bikes, or concert tickets.

Social connection contributes significantly to our happiness and well-being, and gift-giving can help reinforce the ties that are important to us, says Michael Norton, PhD, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in Boston, who specializes in studying how decision-making affects well-being. “Gift-giving is a sign we care about the people in our lives,” Dr. Norton says.

His research, including a study from 2020, has found that spending money on others tends to predict greater happiness than spending on ourselves.

And there’s evidence that giving our time and spending money on others is good for physical markers of health, too. Research suggests that spending cash on others may help lower blood pressure and boost cardiovascular health, a study in the journal Healthy Psychology reported.

The bottom line, Norton says: When done right, gift-giving cultivates a stronger relationship between you and the recipient, showing you care and understand them.

So how do you pick out gifts that deliver all of those bonding, health-promoting effects? Here are some tips from Norton and others.

1. Choose Gifting Experiences Over Stuff

Experiential gifts (think concert tickets, an exercise class, or hosting a loved one for dinner) make the recipient feel closer to the giver, not just when they’re unwrapping their present, but when they’re making use of the gift later. And that’s the case whether the experience is one you do with the recipient or not, according to a study.

Just make sure that you know your audience and you’re choosing an experience you know they’ll like, says study coauthor Cassie Mogilner Holmes, PhD, professor of marketing  and behavioral decision making at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles. In Dr. Holmes’ study, participants were given $15 to buy a friend either an experiential or material gift. Turns out, friends who received experiential gifts like movie tickets or a gift certificate to a restaurant felt closer to the giver compared with friends who received gifts like a mug or a T-shirt.

“It’s all about the emotion that’s evoked when you’re consuming the gift — how much fun you’re having at the concert, how relaxed you feel dining at a nice restaurant. Those emotions are more intense than when you’re looking at a vase on your shelf,” Holmes says.

RELATED: Why Making Time for Holiday Traditions Is Self-Care, Too

2. Think of Long-Term Satisfaction

Ever received a quirky gift that collected dust in the back of your closet until you ended up donating it? This may be because we have a tendency as gift-givers to want to give gifts that have a wow factor. But what makes a gift more valuable to the recipient is a gift that they’ll use over and over again, according to a social psychology research review.

“The recipient is looking at the longevity of the gift and what they can do with it,” says Jeff Galak, PhD, the review’s coauthor and an associate professor of marketing at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

That means don’t shy away from buying a practical gift that may lack shock value but will enrich your loved one’s daily life. “That coffee machine or those headphones you received and use every day are going to keep reminding you of the person who gave it to you,” Dr. Galak says.

3. Don’t Make It a Burden

Whether it’s an experience or a possession, make your gift convenient and easy to use. Unintentionally, many gift-givers hand over a present that creates extra work for their recipient, says Nathan Novemsky, PhD, a professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management in New Haven, Connecticut.

His research has shown that recipients prefer gifts they can use with ease. Participants in a study that included both gift-givers and recipients got to choose between two gift certificates to Italian restaurants: a trendy one with glowing reviews that was an hour away from the recipient’s home or a local eatery that wasn’t as highly rated but was only five minutes away. Gift-givers chose the upscale restaurant because it was perceived as more desirable, but recipients reported no such preference.

Think of when you’ve received a gadget or tool that requires you to read a lengthy instruction manual before using it, a voucher to a spa that’s always booked, or a toy for your kid that requires a type of battery you definitely don’t have on hand.

“Before you buy that thing, ask yourself for a minute, what would it be like for you to get this. Would it be easy to use, or would it be a pain?” Novemsky suggests.

RELATED: Why Friendships Are So Important for Health and Well-Being

4. Follow Instructions

If the person you’re shopping for hands you a Christmas wish list, don’t go rogue. Norton says this is an honest mistake. Research has suggested that the closer you are to the recipient, the more likely you are to stray from the registry to show the person just how thoughtful you are.

But at the end of the day, the recipient wants what they asked for, Galak says.

Other research backs this up. According to a series of five experiments, researchers found that recipients were more appreciative of gifts they explicitly asked for than those they didn’t. Another finding from this data: Givers think money is an undesirable gift, which wasn’t true at all — recipients were happy to receive cash over the holidays.

5. Don’t Feel Pressure to Splurge

Don’t bother breaking the bank on gifts for your loved ones. Indeed, one review of research concluded that spending more on a gift won’t get you extra brownie points with the recipient. The authors looked at three previous studies that examined perceived levels of appreciation for both givers and receivers on a range of gifts. Across the board, givers thought expensive gifts would be appreciated more, but recipients had no such association.

“You can’t give junk and hope for the best. But you don’t need to spend beyond your reasonable threshold, because more expensive doesn’t mean better,” Norton says, so spend within what’s reasonable for your budget.

RELATED: Why Giving to Causes You Care About Is Good for Your Health