We’ve all been there. You open a beautifully wrapped present only to find a dud. Or worse — you’re personally offended by what’s inside.
After the initial awkwardness, you wonder, “Why did they think I would like this?”
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
If you ever experienced this, you are not alone. Most of us view gifts as an expression of love and connection, so when we receive an inexplicable gift, we hope the other person just made a mistake. Unfortunately, as a consumer behavior researcher, I am here to tell you otherwise.
I have spent years studying what drives people’s gift purchases, and here is the hard truth: Some people intentionally give painful, mean-spirited gifts.
My research into these gifts was inspired by a joke my father played on me as a child. He presented me with a gift: a box in a box in a box. With each unboxing, the packages grew smaller as my excitement grew larger. When, at last, I reached the final box, I was crushed. It was empty.
In my father’s defense, this was an April Fools’ Day prank. But on other occasions, bad gifts can damage more than just the relationship between the giver and recipient. They have implications for companies and retailers, too.
In 2023, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults returned holiday gifts — a 47% increase from the previous year. Undoubtedly, this was bad news for retailers which, on average, incur around $145 million in returned products for every $1 billion in sales. For online sales, that number is even higher, clocking in at around $247 billion.
Unwanted gifts are costly in every sense of the word. But understanding why people choose to give us painful gift experiences can take away some of the sting.
In 2016, I published in-depth research into the consumer psychology behind ill-intended gifts. As it turns out, being on the receiving end of these items is a shared experience. Whether I was interviewing couples or analyzing messages in online forums, consumers revealed one cringeworthy present after the next.
Ultimately, they fell into five categories:
- Threats to your self-concept: Items given as personal affronts. This included a woman who gifted her childless daughter-in-law a pregnancy test for Christmas.
- To-you-for-me: Selfish purchases that benefit the giver more than the recipient. One husband gave his wife a big-screen television for her birthday, just in time for the Super Bowl. She had no plans of watching the game, however.
- Aggressive: Petty and often passive-aggressive gifts meant to offend. For Mother’s Day, a man purchased a lawn furniture set for his wife. When she asked him to return it, he bought her more of that “ugly” furniture for her birthday. Unsurprisingly, the couple got divorced soon after.
- Obligatory: Intended simply to check a box. These gifts are not usually malicious but are given with little thought.
- Competitive: Intended to “outgift” everyone else. Think about the grandparents who buy their grandchild an over-the-top present that Mom and Dad vetoed.
Naturally, bad gifts can fall into multiple categories. Selfish presents can also be confrontational, and antagonistic ones can be competitive.
If you find yourself on the receiving end of a painful, ill-intended gift this holiday season, you still have options. Of course, you can give it to someone who would appreciate it, donate it to charity or store it in the closet and forget about it. When all else fails, you might even be able to return it to the store and get something you want.
Most important, avoid playing into the giver’s hand and providing them with the satisfaction of knowing you hated their bad present. That’s what they want.
Deborah Y. Cohn is a marketing professor at the New York Institute of Technology.
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