Gift-giving Behavior Research Articles

To Gift or Not: Understanding Gifting Behavior on Live Streaming Platforms from the Perspective of Social Influence and Herding

Live streaming has been increasingly popular worldwide, with gift-giving emerging as a pivotal revenue stream for many streamers. While prior research has delved into the influence of streamers’ emotions and viewer-streamer interaction on viewers’ gift-giving behaviors, we suggest that peer viewers also play an essential role. In line with the principles of social influence and herding theory, the behaviors of peer viewers and the size of the viewing group are integral factors shaping individual behaviors. Hence, in the context of lives streaming, we focus on examining the impact of peer viewers’ gift-giving behaviors and the audience size on the gift-giving behaviors of individual viewers, respectively. Additionally, we examine the moderating role of viewers’ identities. We collected data from a popular live streaming platform in China and employed a panel regression model based on a sample of 651,678 viewers. This study contributes to the gift-giving literature by revealing the influence of peer viewers on focal viewers’ likelihood of gifting, gifting frequency and gifting value, and the moderating effect of viewers’ identities. Overall, these results have significant implications for both the theoretical understanding of social influence and herding in online setting, as well as the practical implications for future live streaming management. Future research could delve deeper into understanding the impact of various types of live streaming content and cultural differences on individual’s gift-giving behavior.

Can social interaction-oriented content trigger viewers' purchasing and gift-giving behaviors? Evidence from live-streaming commerce

PurposeThis study investigates how social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech affects broadcast viewers' purchasing and gift-giving behaviors and how broadcaster popularity moderates social interaction-oriented content's effect on the two different behaviors in live-streaming commerce.Design/methodology/approachA research model was proposed and empirically tested using a panel data set collected from 537 live streams via Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), one of the most popular live broadcast platforms in China. A fixed-effects negative binomial regression model was used to examine the proposed research model.FindingsThis study's results show that social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech has an inverted U-shaped relationship with broadcast viewers' purchasing behavior and shares a positive linear relationship with viewers' gift-giving behavior. Furthermore, broadcaster popularity significantly moderates the effect of social interaction-oriented content on viewers' purchasing and gift-giving behaviors.Originality/valueThis research enriches the literature on live-streaming commerce by investigating how social interaction-oriented content in broadcasters' live speech affects broadcast viewers' product-purchasing and gift-giving behaviors from the perspective of broadcast viewers' attention. Moreover, this study provides some practical guidelines for developing live speech content in the live-streaming commerce context.

Understanding gift-giving in game live streaming on Douyu: An evaluation of PSR/social presence.

In China, live streaming has grown rapidly in recent years, with gift-giving, a unique business model in live streaming, driving the development of many industries. This article explores the association between gift-giving behavior in game live streaming and viewers' live streaming experience. Specifically, this study aims to explore the correlation between Para-social Relationships, Social Presence, and gift-giving in the context of China. Based on the survey and interview of the viewer on Douyu, a Chinese live streaming platform, this study found that there is only a weak to a medium correlation between para-social relationships and viewers' gift-giving behavior. The correlation between social presence and gift-giving was even weaker. Although the conclusion of this study may be affected by the sample size limitation, it can still provide a reference for the current research on gift-giving on Chinese live streaming platforms.

Confucian culture, moral reminder, and soft corruption

We developed a gift exchange game with the attribute of soft corruption that can test subjects’ behaviors in acting as both a gift giver and a gift recipient. In the experiment, we use an implicit priming method to make Confucian culture values mentally salient and measure the impact on subjects’ behaviors. Additionally, we introduce the intervention of a moral reminder to test whether altering the external environment related to the scope of self-directed moral justification affects behaviors in soft corruption. We show that soft corruption is pervasive: 65.8% of subjects choose to send a gift; only 6.2% of gift recipients would reject a gift; subjects strongly reciprocate gifting behavior by awarding higher scores to gift givers. Priming Confucian culture had no significant effect on gift-giving behavior while simultaneously promoting the fairness of grading as a grader. The intervention of a moral reminder has a limited effect on the Confucian culture groups’ gift-giving behaviors and has a limited effect on the fairness of grading for the control group.

A Cretaceous balloon lifts the veil on the antiquity and evolution of nuptial gifts

Nuptial gift-giving is one of the most remarkable traits to have evolved among animal mating systems, and has brought about numerous hypotheses regarding their evolution and influence. Yet, their study has been confined to the modern fauna owing to their ephemeral nature and lack of traces on the environment suitable for preservation. Here we report the first paleontological and earliest evidence of nuptial gift-giving behavior from a male fly of Alavesia (Diptera: Empidoidea) that is an obligate flower visitor in Cretaceous amber carrying his gift, an empty frothy balloon. The fossil demonstrates the antiquity of this behavior, its occurrence in early diverging lineages of Empidoidea, and its maintenance over 99 million years. The nature of the fossil gift provides clues into the function of swarming and the diversity of gifts employed. Based on the phylogenetic pattern of feeding and mating traits, it is inferred that the gift initially alleviated nutrient pressure on females and may have been empty and secreted from male salivary glands in the first place, those with prey items inside were derived later. The evolution of these mating systems may have been a response to maximizing the usage of exogenous nutrients and for signal transmission.

Impacts of different interactions on viewers’ sense of virtual community: an empirical study of live streaming platform

ABSTRACT With the rapid development of the Internet and the widespread adoption of mobile devices, live streaming has become a new social medium in the last few years. Hence, the continuous usage of live streaming platforms has become an important issue. Based on social exchange theory, this study investigates how different kinds of interactions affect viewers’ sense of virtual community (SOVC) and in turn facilitate their continuous watching intention. Empirical results (N = 423) reveal that both viewer-broadcaster interaction and viewer-viewer interaction positively affect viewers’ SOVC, which further enhances their stickiness. Furthermore, viewer-platform interaction positively moderates the effects of interactions between viewers and broadcasters on their SOVC, whereas the moderating role of gift-giving behaviour is insignificant. Finally, the effects of viewer-broadcaster interaction and viewer-viewer interaction on stickiness are partially mediated by SOVC. This study contributes to in-depth research on the relationships between different specific interactions and viewers’ continuous watching intention, which enriches the existing study on live streaming and deepens our understanding of viewers’ stickiness. The empirical findings of this study suggest that social media developers and managers take actions to encourage interactions that increase viewers’ stickiness.

Ineffective nuptial gifts suggest female emancipation from sensory exploitation

Male sensory exploitation of female gustatory pre-existing bias has been proposed for the origin of nuptial gifts in insects and spiders. This sexual trait may have been beneficial to both sexes, giving mating and survival advantages to males and providing nutritional resources for females. However, the evolution of deceptive worthless gifts is against females’ interests and may trigger a co-evolutionary change in females’ preferences. We evaluated females’ preferences for nuptial gifts and the adaptive function of the gift in the spider Trechaleoides keyserlingi. The genus belongs to the understudied Neotropical family Trechaleidae in which nuptial gifts are widespread. The family is composed of only two species, and the gift seems to be absent in the sister species, creating a relevant scenario for understanding co-evolutionary processes. In the laboratory, we found that although males invested more in nuptial gifts when encountering mated females compared to unmated, they had similar mating access and duration than males lacking a gift. We also found an absence of female choice between males offering nutritive and worthless gifts. Few females were aggressive and cannibalized males, and we did not find evidence that the gift protected males from cannibalism. In the field, 50% of the gifts were worthless items. This is congruent with the laboratory findings where males offering worthless gifts seem to better attract females, which we discuss in the context of exploitation of female gustatory bias. We therefore propose that females may have evolved indifference for the gift and that gift-giving in this species represents a currently non-functional remnant of a behaviour. Nutritive nuptial gifts can exploit female gustatory preferences, with mutual benefits for both sexes: males can increase mating success and survival, while females increase their fecundity. But males can offer worthless gifts leading females to suboptimal matings, and in turn females can evolve indifference for the trait. The spider genus Trechaleoides is ideal to examine this process because gift-giving behaviour is present in one species and absent in the other. We examined females’ preferences for nuptial gifts and its function for males in the gift-giving species T. keyserlingi. We found that males invest in a gift but gain no reproductive advantage, as females were equally likely to mate with them regardless of whether they offered a gift or whether the gift was nutritive or worthless. We propose that females may have changed their preferences and that the gift is a remnant non-functional trait.

나를 위한 소유, 타인을 위한 경험: 나 vs 타인을 위한 선물 유형의 차이와 감정적 단절의 조절 효과

본 연구는 자신을 위한 선물 구매 상황과 타인을 위한 선물 구매 상황에서 선호하는 재화 유형(물질재 또는 경험재)의 차이를 탐색하고, 이 차이에 대한 개인의 감정적 단절 수준의 조절 효과를 검증하기 위하여 실시되었다. 이를 위해 Amazon Mechanical Turk를 통해 온라인 설문 방식으로 연구 1과 연구 2를 수행하였으며 각각의 연구에 성인 100명이 참가하였다. 해석수준 이론을 바탕으로 할 때, 심리적 거리가 가까운 대상에 대한 의사결정 상황에서는 제품의 구체적 속성에 초점을 맞추고, 심리적 거리가 먼 대상에 대해서는 제품의 추상적 속성에 주목한다. 연구 1에서 자신을 위한 선물로는 추상적인 경험재에 비해 구체적인 물질재를 선호하고, 타인을 위한 선물로는 물질재에 비해 경험재를 선호할 것이라는 가설 1을 확인하였다. 이어 연구 2에서는 감정적 단절 수준의 조절적 역할을 확인하였다. 가설 2와 일치하게, 감정적 단절 수준이 높을수록 자신을 위한 선물로는 물질재를, 타인을 위한 선물로는 경험재를 선호하는 경향성이 강해졌다. 본 연구는 선물을 받는 대상에게 느끼는 심리적 거리가 선호하는 선물 재화의 유형에 영향을 끼친다는 사실을 제안함으로써 선물 구매 행동에 대한 이론적, 실무적 의의를 갖는다. 본 연구에 대한 추가적인 논의와 한계, 가능한 추후 연구도 함께 논의하였다.

GIFT GIVING BEHAVIOR AMONG MILLENNIALS, THE USE OF PHOTO ELICITATION INTERVIEW TO DISCOVER CONSUMER INSIGHT

Manuscript type: Research paper Research Aims: This paper aims to explore gift-giving activities among millennials at the perspective of gift-giver using the photo elicitation interview. The typology of the relationship between gift givers and recieversand the effects of this relationship to the types of products given in gift-giving activities are also evaluated. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is using phenomenological approach and photo elicitation interview with purposive convenience sampling method to obtain gift-givers decision making process in searching gift products. Research Findings: The process of searching, preparing, and delivering of gifts is influenced by several factors, namely the closeness of the relationship, past experiences and the moment of giving the gift. The structure of intimacy creates hierarchy of gift giving given by gift givers. The position and social class of the gift receiver affect the shape, price, and gifts delivery process. Theoretical Contribution/Originality: This research is expected to provide an understanding of the consumer decision-making process in giving gifts at certain moments experienced by consumers. Practitioner/Policy Implication: This paper give insights to the practitioner about the promotional and products design that are associated with the closeness between consumers and gift givers to attract gift-givers giving a gift to the special people around them  This study is only discuss gift-giving behavior from gift-givers and does not pay attention to the recipient perspective so it is less comprehensive in discussing gift-giving behavior in the millennial generation

Another one bites the gift: sexual behaviour in a Trechaleoides species

In some spiders, nuptial gifts consist of prey or inedible items wrapped in silk by males and offered to females during courtship. Such gifts occur in the Neotropical family Trechaleidae, of which most species are semi-aquatic, associated with watercourses in riparian habitats. Here, we describe the sexual behaviour of the South American species Trechaleoides keyserlingi and report the presence of nuptial gift-giving behaviour for the first time in the genus.

"I Love the Feeling of Being on Stage, but I Become Greedy"

Live streaming is an emergent social medium that allows remote interaction between the streamer and an audience of any size. Major live-streaming platforms in some Asian countries have a digital gift-giving feature that allows viewers to directly reward streamers during live sessions. Streamers can later exchange the digital gifts they have received for money, and this monetary incentive appears likely to influence how they interact with their viewers and generate live-streaming content. However, the precise nature and mechanisms of such impact have not previously been explored. Therefore, this qualitative study with 13 streamer participants examines how digital gifting influences streamers' motivations and the nature of both the content that they generate and their social interactions with their audiences. It reports that the digital-gifting function serves as a major incentive for active streaming, but may also disincentivize some streamers from continuing to contribute, for reasons that will be explored. Moreover, the participants devised strategies for both content generation and social interaction with the specific objective of earning gifts from viewers: practices that, in some cases, appeared to limit the quality of their live-streaming content. It was also noted that the streamers tended to have constrained social relationships with their viewers, in part because such relationships were seen as unequal or one-sided due to gift-giving behavior. The paper concludes with a discussion of design considerations for the incorporation of gift-giving features into live-streaming platforms, and additional recommendations for future research and the design of such platforms.

Children use targets' facial appearance to guide and predict social behavior.

Humans possess a tendency to rapidly and consistently make character evaluations from mere facial appearance. Recent work shows that this tendency emerges surprisingly early: children as young as 3-years-old provide adult-like assessments of others on character attributes such as "nice," "strong," and "smart" based only on subtle variations in targets' face shape and physiognomy (i.e., latent face-traits). The present research examined the behavioral consequences of children's face-trait judgments by asking whether, and if so when in development, the appearance of face-traits also (a) shapes children's judgments of targets' behaviors and (b) guides children's behavior toward targets. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that, by 3 years of age, children used facial features in character evaluations but not in judgments of targets' behavior, whereas by 5 years of age, children reliably made both character and behavior judgments from face-traits. Age-related change in behavior judgments was also observed in children's own behaviors toward targets: Experiments 3 and 4 showed that, by age 5 (but not earlier), children were more likely to give gifts to targets with trustworthy and submissive-looking faces (Experiment 3) and showed concordance between their character evaluations and gift-giving behaviors (Experiment 4). These findings newly suggest that, although children may rapidly make character evaluations from face-trait appearance, predicting and performing social behaviors based on face-traits may require more developed and specific understanding of traits and their relationships to behaviors. Nevertheless, by kindergarten, even relatively arbitrary and subtle face-traits appear to have meaningful consequences in shaping children's social judgments and interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Keeping the Joneses From Getting Ahead in the First Place: Envy’s Influence on Gift Giving Behavior

Past research in gift giving has largely treated asymmetries between the types of gifts givers give and the ones recipients prefer to receive as unintentional errors on the part of givers. In contrast, we show that givers sometimes intentionally bypass gifts that they know will bring the most joy and happiness to their recipients. Specifically, we demonstrate that givers dislike giving gifts that compare favorably to their own possessions, because they feel that doing so would lead them to experience envy and thus become less satisfied with their own possessions. Consequently, they instead opt for other gifts that are not superior to their own possessions and thus do not negatively impact their liking of their own possessions. Critically, givers sometimes opt for these alternative gifts even in cases where they know they are less preferred by recipients. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

Elucidating the emotional and relational aspects of gift giving

Gift giving is a complex emotional process that is important in maintaining relationships. However, little is understood about the effects of individual differences in consumers' ability to understand the emotions of the receiver and even themselves in the gift-giving process. A series of three studies reveal that emotional understanding (EU) influences how much money consumers spend on gifts. Study 1 shows that consumers with higher EU are likely to spend more money on buying gifts for others. Study 2 indicates that relationship closeness moderates the effect of EU on gift spending. Finally, Study 3 demonstrates that consumers with higher EU not only spend more money on gifts but also experience greater happiness. These results highlight the important role of EU on gift-giving behaviors and on the subsequent well-being of the giver.

The effect of others’ outcome valence on spontaneous gift-giving behavior

PurposeIn social networking services gift giving, the decision to send a gift is often initiated by spontaneous news about others, who may have recently experienced fortune or misfortune. The purpose of this paper is to show that the valence of the other’s event can affect the empathy experienced by the giver and that the level of empathy affects gift selection behavior.Design/methodology/approachStudy 1 investigated the relationship between empathy and valence of other’s event and the underlying mechanism of changes in self-esteem. Study 2 explored how different levels of empathies lead to different gift selection behavior. Study 3 replicated the results of Study 2 using a different measurement approach.FindingsAcross the three studies, findings consistently suggest that the empathy arising from unexpected news of the others’ fortune was lower compared to that of the others’ misfortune because of threats to self-esteem. In addition, greater empathy prompted gift givers to spend more time and effort in gift selection.Practical implicationsUnderstanding how valence of event experienced by others might motivate givers to engage in selecting a gift online can help retailers increase predictive insights for recommendations.Originality/valueWhile past research focused on ritual gift giving, this research examined spontaneous gift giving. The study is also unique in that the empathy gap between the giver and the receiver is a result of the changes in the psychological state of the giver.

Gift-selection for close recipients: how perceived similarity of preferences affect giver’s attitude

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the impact of gift-givers’ perception of relational closeness on their gift-selection attitude and eventual selection when the gift is not a requested-gift.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework was constructed on the basis of five hypotheses, which were tested by field data collected through surveys of urban Indian gift-givers while they shopped for a gift. Logistic regressions were used for validating hypotheses. Mediation effect was computed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS.FindingsThe giver may have either a “recipient-centric” or a “giver-centric” attitude towards gift-selection. It was found that givers who feel greater closeness towards recipients are less likely to be “giver-centric” and more likely to believe that the recipient’s preferences are similar to their own. The givers’ belief that the recipient’s preferences are similar to their own mediates the effect of closeness on attitude. Closeness reduces the odds of making a “preference-contrary” selection among “recipient-centric” givers because of a perceived similarity of preferences.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was conducted among urban Indian gift-shoppers. Cross-cultural study may be required for general interpretation of the results. In addition, the role of reciprocity in determining giver’s attitude and gift-selection was not studied.Practical implicationsThe study found that the odds of making “preference-contrary” gift-selection depend on the closeness of the dyadic relation. This understanding can be used in advertising and promoting products that are used as gifts between close relations.Originality/valuePrevious studies postulated and demonstrated that relational closeness affects gift-giving behaviour, but none connected closeness to gift-selection. This research conceptualised gift-giver’s attitude, which influences giver’s selection.

The Price of Friendship

Abstract This article discusses the gift-giving behaviour of English merchants involved in the Russia trade in the Muscovite era. Drawing on a small, but growing body of historical literature relating to the role of gifts in the cultivation of mutually beneficial relations between people across the social spectrum in early modern Europe, it explores the various ways in which the English deployed the practice of giving to their advantage, both in England and in Russia. In particular, as ‘strangers’ in Russia who operated beyond the parameters of traditional kin- and community-based networks of support, English merchants (and other foreigners, such as their Dutch competitors) needed to both ‘befriend’ Russian clients on the ground in every-day trade and nurture relationships in high places to ensure smooth, profitable, and secure business. As the sources reveal, they engaged in a variety of gift-giving behaviours in building relationships with Russians advantageous to their enterprise.

FOOD GIFT-GIVING BEHAVIOR IN CHINESE CULTURAL: THEORY OF CONSUMPTION VALUES

Foods play important roles in Chinese gift giving behavior; they contain abundant symbolic and semiotics meanings. Typical food products are exchange during festivals, commercial intercourse, and other social intercourse occasion. The purpose of study is to investigate how the meanings and values of food gifts affect gift-giving behavior under Chinese cultural context. Qualitative in-depth interviews are applied, eighteen participants from food gift industry, academic field and consumers are invited in the study, and qualitative data analysis framework is designed based on Sheth’s consumption values theory. We find that food gifts cover function value, emotional value, social value, epistemic value and conditional value. Gift values are explained by givers and recipients during gift-giving process. Gift-giving occasion, gift-giving purpose, relationship between givers and recipients are influence the value of gift. Study provides some practical recommendation for food products design and marketing.

The Smile-Seeking Hypothesis: How Immediate Affective Reactions Motivate and Reward Gift Giving

People making decisions for others often do not choose what their recipients most want. Prior research has generally explained such preference mismatches as decision makers mispredicting recipients’ satisfaction. We proposed that a “smile-seeking” motive is a distinct cause for these mismatches in the context of gift giving. After examining common gift options for which gift givers expect a difference between the recipients’ affective reaction (e.g., a smile when receiving the gift) and overall satisfaction, we found that givers often chose to forgo satisfaction-maximizing gifts and instead favor reaction-maximizing gifts. This reaction-maximizing preference was mitigated when givers anticipated not giving the gift in person. Results from six studies suggest that anticipated affective reactions powerfully shape gift givers’ choices and giving experiences, independently of (and even in spite of) anticipated recipient satisfaction. These findings reveal a dominant yet overlooked role that the display of affective reactions plays in motivating and rewarding gift-giving behaviors and shed new light on interpersonal decision making.

Your gift choice for your boss versus your subordinate would not be the same: The interplay of power and giver-receiver role on consumers' gift preferences

Past research on gift-giving behaviors has presumed equal and horizontal relationships between givers and receivers; however, in the real world, giver-receiver relationships often vary in their level of power, such as parent-child and boss-employee relationships. However, little is known regarding how the difference in power in the giver-receiver relationship influences people's gift choices. Building on construal level theory, the present research proposes and confirms that differences in interpersonal power between givers and receivers can affect the desirability versus feasibility of gifts, which in turn influences individuals' gift preferences. By highlighting the role of power in the gift-giving/receiving situations, these findings contribute to research on gift-giving, while also providing practical implications.