Half a Gift Is Not Half-Hearted: A Giver–Receiver Asymmetry in the Thoughtfulness of Partial Gifts

Four studies document an asymmetry in givers’ and receivers’ evaluations of gifts: givers underestimate the extent to which receivers perceive partial (but more desirable) gifts to be thoughtful,valuable,and worthy of appreciation. study 1 documents this asymmetry and suggests that givers underestimate the extent to which partial gifts signal thoughtfulness to receivers. study 2 replicates this asymmetry in the context of a real gift exchange among friends. study 3 shows that this asymmetry arises because givers believe that purchasing partial gifts is a greater violation of gift-giving norms than do receivers,leading givers to expect that partial gifts will damage receivers’ perceptions of a gift’s value. study 4 offers an intervention that induces givers to select the (partial) gifts that receivers prefer more than givers expect: framing a gift’s separate components as complete units. © 2017,© 2017 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.