Summary Of The Gift Of Similarity

1a) The title of the article is “The Gift Of Similarity: How Good And Bad Gifts Influence Relationships”.

1b) The authors are Elizabeth W. Dunn, Jeff Huntsinger, Janetta Lun, and Stacey Sinclair.

1c) Social Cognition

2008

Volume 26

Page 469 to 481

2a) It is to test the idea that gifts can be used to determine preferences similarity between people. Thus, gifts can impact relationship development by revealing similarity between people, especially relationship partners.

2b) The main limitation is that it lack experimental evidence. Findings are determined by participant’s memory based on past experience and prediction thus, they were not actual responses as challenges to imagine or recall accurately was observed (Areni, Kiecker, & Palan, 1998;

The ratings show that’s participants in the good gift condition liked the gift more than participants in the bad gift condition.

4a) The main findings in terms of perceived similarity is that there is an evident relationship between gift condition and gender. After receiving a bad gifts, men perceived lesser similarity between themselves and their partner while women did not perceive much. Likewise, in a good gift condition, men perceived greater similarity to their partner and women did not report differences in similarity with their partner.

4b) The main finding in perceived similarity is that both gender and gift condition plays a part in one’s perception of similarity. For example, men perceived lesser similarity between themselves and their romantic partner after receiving a bad gift while women perceived greater similarity with their partner in the same condition. This affected perceived similarity can influence the outlook on their relationship as well. Results show that after receiving a bad gift, men rated their relationship’s future to be significantly more negative while women perceived the relationship to be slightly more

With that, researchers were able to move beyond studies that relied on participant’s intuitions and imagination which may be inaccurate. Also, gifts giving is concluded to have the ability to influence important judgement which includes participant’s perceived relationship similarity and the likelihood of marriage. Thus, as gifts have the potential to play a surprisingly powerful role in the interpersonal relationship, the researcher provided an answer source as to why people practices gift-giving despite all