Essay On Gift Giving

732 Words3 Pages
Fee-based transactions are the alpha and omega of modern businesses, and without them, the economical world, as we know it today, would not be able to function. But gifts and the process of giving and receiving them also play a significant role in our modern world, both economically and socially. As a form of reciprocity or exchange, gift giving is one of the processes that integrate a society (Sherry, 1983). In the US alone, gifts are estimated to account for more than 4 percent of the typical annual household budget, suggesting that almost one hundred billion dollars are spent on gifts every year (Garner & Wagner, 1991). Giving and receiving gifts is instrumental in maintaining social ties and serve as a symbolic means of communication in relationships (Ruth, Otnes, & Brunel 1999).…show more content…
As such, gifts form an important part of the economical exchange.…show more content…
But do the same forces, namely the will to prevent the pain of giving up an object and the effect that object has on one’s own self-image, also come into play in a complementary transaction? Will the absence of a monetary payment one the one hand, or the presence of well-intentioned gift giving on the other hand, have an effect on the recipient’s economical valuation of the gifted object? And what about the important social and expressive implications of gift giving? How does the initial relationship between gift giver and recipient affect the latters endowment of a gift? And, vice versa, what effect does the process of gift giving have on the relationship between giver and

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