Gift Giving brings together 21 scholars from a variety of disciplines - including consumer behavior, communications, and sociology - who are dedicated to the understanding of what motivates gift selection, presentation, and incorporation of a gift into a person's life. The text explores the role of values in gift exchange; the influence of ethnic, generational, and subcultural differences in gift exchange; how gifts to the self are manifested; and new directions and topics in gift giving. In these essays, gift giving occasions are probed for the meanings that can be illuminated with respect to this pervasive, yet not always positive, phenomenon. For anyone interested in gift giving behavior, this volume should prove both enlightening and provocative.
Gift-giving is extremely important in Japanese society, not only at personal and household levels, but at the national and macroeconomic levels as well. This book is the first in English to document the extraordinary scale, complexity, and variation of giving in contemporary Japan. Gift-Giving in Japan is based on eighteen months' fieldwork in the Tokyo metropolitan area, as well as short-term research in other parts of Japan. The core of the study is the experience of family representatives of different ages, classes, genders, occupations, neighborhoods, and religions. The author also interviewed experts, including the author of gift-giving etiquette books, Buddhist and Shinto priests, department store and funeral home employees, and workers at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market. She participated in neighborhood festivals, election rallies, house-building rites, and other ceremonies of which gift-giving was an integral part. Recent anthropological interest in drawing a strong contrast between commodities and gifts both reflects and reinforces the conception of the gift as part of the giver and the related distinction between the realm of the gift and the realm of the marketplace. The author argues that Japanese practices of giving and receiving challenge assumptions related to this idea of the gift.
"GIFT GIVING for Mommies" helps you overcome the dilemmas and to enjoy the art and practice of gift giving; becoming "gifted" in the art of selection, presentation, and reception of gifts. In the first Chapter, "Gift Selection," the quandaries in choosing and giving the right gift are unraveled. Surprisingly, "re-gifting" can be done with a lot of class. In the second chapter, "Gift Presentation," the reader is shown how to make exactly the right presentation of the gift. Cultures dictate that gifts must be presented in a particular manner to avoid offending the receiver. Knowing the protocol can mean the difference between making or breaking a personal or business relationship. In the third chapter, "Gift Reception," the author enlightens the reader about the complications associated with being on the receiving end of a gift. We don't always receive a gift properly. Knowing how and when to decline a gift is as important as knowing how to select and properly present a gift.
Gift-giving is an economically significant area of consumer behavior. For we are constantly buy gifts: for Christmas and Mother’s Day, for birth and baptism, for the start of school and exams, for engagements and weddings, for birthdays or as souvenirs. Moreover, gift-giving is a very important psychological phenomenon, based on voluntariness, but also representing a duty and requiring compliance with rules. Thus, gift giving is by no means always associated with joy, but also with stress in the search for a perfect gift and disappointment when gifts fail. The book presents central results of psychological research on gift-giving. These provide answers to the following questions, among others: What ‘secret’ rules of giving and receiving do we follow? What messages do we send with our gifts? How do certain characteristics - such as the amount of the price or empathy - influence satisfaction with a Gift-giving is an economically significant area of consumer behavior. For we are constantly buy gifts: for Christmas and Mother’s Day, for birth and baptism, for the start of school and exams, for engagements and weddings, for birthdays or as souvenirs. Moreover, gift-giving is a very important psychological phenomenon, based on voluntariness, but also representing a duty and requiring compliance with rules. Thus, gift giving is by no means always associated with joy, but also with stress in the search for a perfect gift and disappointment when gifts fail. The book presents central results of psychological research on gift-giving. These provide answers to the following questions, among others: · What ‘secret’ rules of giving and receiving do we follow? · What messages do we send with our gifts? · How do certain characteristics - such as the amount of the price or empathy - influence satisfaction with a gift? · What mistakes should we avoid when giving gifts in romantic relationships? · When is a monetary gift appropriate and when is it not? The Author Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. em. Bernd Stauss held the Chair of Service Management at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. What mistakes should we avoid when giving gifts in romantic relationships? When is a monetary gift appropriate and when is it not? The presentation of psychological gift-giving research is supplemented by references to gift-giving episodes in fiction by authors such as Paul Auster, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Mitchell, and Thomas Mann. These illustrate the scientific findings and allow us to emotionally comprehend the experience of giving and receiving. The Author Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. em. Bernd Stauss held the Chair of Service Management at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
Do you feel overwhelmed at the thought of another Christmas, holiday season, or birthday? Do you ever wish you could effortlessly know what gifts make people happy? Are there times when you just can't think of what to get someone and you end up giving them a gift card, yet again? Ever hear of an amazingly unique gift someone gave, and wonder how they ever thought of it? In The Art of Gift Giving you will learn simple skills and discover useful resources that make birthdays and holidays something to look forward to -- as fun opportunities to show the people you care about how well you know and appreciate them. You will learn how to listen, be creative, and present gifts that always touch and bring happiness to the people in your life. You will become a Master Gift Giver
Gift-giving played an important role in political, social and religious life in medieval and early modern Europe. This volume explores an under-examined and often-overlooked aspect of this phenomenon: the material nature of the gift. Drawing on examples from both medieval and early modern Europe, the authors from the UK and across Europe explore the craftsmanship involved in the production of gifts and the use of exotic objects and animals, from elephant bones to polar bears and 'living' holy objects, to communicate power, class and allegiance. Gifts were publicly given, displayed and worn and so the book explores the ways in which, as tangible objects, gifts could help to construct religious and social worlds. But the beauty and material richness of the gift could also provoke anxieties. Classical and Christian authorities agreed that, in gift-giving, it was supposed to be the thought that counted and consequently wealth and grandeur raised worries about greed and corruption: was a valuable ring payment for sexual services or a token of love and a promise of marriage? Over three centuries, Gift-Giving and Materiality in Europe, 1300-1600: Gifts as Objects reflects on the possibilities, practicalities and concerns raised by the material character of gifts.
You can survive the holidays with this ebook guide to giving great gifts without breaking the bank. This book is chunked full of awesome gift ideas for anniversaries, birthdays, christmas, father's day and mother's day. Plus helpful tips.
In recent years, traditional economic theory has been enriched by behavioral components. There is huge and rapidly growing evidence from empirical and experimental studies that mere profit maximization is in many cases not a good proxy of real-life decision-making and interaction in economic situations. Yet, although the concept of homo oeconomicus has subsequently been dismissed by many authors, behavior is not random or arbitrary, but follows systematic patterns and rules that researchers in the field of behavioral economics aim at understanding. This thesis adds to the understanding of actual economic decision-making by analyzing behavior in three different economic applications. The first application concerns experimental studies on the performance of partnership dissolution mechanisms. The second application studies the effects of policy instruments on a firm`s incentives to invest in R&D. Finally, the third application tests the impact of responsibility for being in a disadvantageous situation through deliberate risk-taking on solidarity behavior of economic agents. Potential readership includes scholars of experimental economics in the fields of mechanism design, industrial organization and social preferences as well as interested students and practitioners involved in these areas.
This book is a profound but simply written mediation on the central mysteries of the Christian fait—the trinity, redemption, the eucharist, human participation in the divine life and solidarity with one another—in a contemporary idiom.
Science has taught us that giving to others can actually make us happier than spending that same amount of money on yourself --gifting makes everyone happier and makes the world a better place. In this book, you will find out how to: -Look like the most caring & thoughtful member of the family, even if you're not -Get inside the recipient's head, so it's easy to find relevant gifts -Effortless ideas to make the gifting experience more exciting -Save time and stress when you find presents to buy, that you almost know are going to be positively received -How to make the fun of gift giving on Christmas last longer than just the morning by creating competition -Find out why some humorous gifts don't even get a chuckle -Find out what the people close to you really want? -Should you buy one big gift or multiple small ones? -Ways to buy gifts that are much more personal -How to prevent some unequal exchanges of gifts -Replace Secret Santa with something worth doing -Find gifts that keep on giving all year long -How to avoid the worst possible presents you can give ...and much, much more!
Many otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or—worse yet—as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the “real issues” of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals. Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples—from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm—the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.
