Effects of Status, Wealth, and Friendship on Preference for and Appreciation of Gifts

• In Event: 142 - Regular Session. Group Processes

Abstract

Research shows that a giver’s wealth negatively affects a receiver’s impression of a gift. Wealth can make gifts appear less costly to givers, and therefore be interpreted as less effusive to receivers. However, wealth is also a form of status, and a giver’s status may affect gift valuation separately from wealth. Using an experimental vignette design, Study 1 finds that both a giver’s increasing wealth and increasing status leads to a greater preference for a gift, while increasing wealth, but not status, leads to reduced appreciation for a gift. Study 2 replicates Study 1’s finding that participants prefer receiving gifts from high-status givers, and also shows that this preference exists whether the giver is described as a close friend or as a distant acquaintance. Gifts have been described as gestures meant to form associations between givers and receivers, and participants’ greater desire for gifts from high-status givers is interpreted by this paper as further support for the claim that people have an associational bias toward those of high status.

Author

• Robert Gordon Rinderknecht, University of Maryland