Life Hack: A Small Gift May Comfort Someone More Than a Heart-to-Heart
Life Hack: A Small Gift May Comfort Someone More Than a Heart-to-Heart
An evidence-based approach to consoling a friend
What’s the best way to console someone who’s had a bad day?
A fascinating new paper by Holly Howe and colleagues suggests that giving a small gift - flowers or a chocolate bar, for instance - is more effective than a sympathetic ear. While both can help, the researchers found that gifts have a unique power to lift people’s spirits. The finding replicated across seven separate studies, including one in-person study involving real gifts.
Here’s the key result from the paper.
How do gifts work their magic?
The secret sauce seems to be that gifts are seen as a more thoughtful and selfless gesture than conversations. Recipients view them as a greater personal sacrifice, tailored specifically to their needs. This makes the gift feel more meaningful, which in turn makes it more effective at cheering people up.
Having a bad day?
If so, here’s my gift to you: The paper is open-access, so you can read the whole thing for free. Check it out here.
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I’ve never told anyone but during a 3 year period during COVID in San Francisco every Friday evening I had a small dinner with friends at different restaurants around the city, and the game was that it was always someone’s birthday, announced to the restaurant in advance.
We had a birthday card (with the date and whose birthday we decided it was, we all rotated), and sang a song, and the birthday person always got a few presents.
Silly ones - I got a Zoltar talking thing. I printed a book of campy old 70’s men’s underwear advertising (thank you on-demand printers). Japanese socks. A wind up metal chicken that pooped jellybean eggs. A giant redwood seedling. Silly but fun, and irrespective of the gift it was always uplifting during unpleasant times.
The restaurants were always in on it - you can’t go too often to the same place but they thought it was fun.
Highly recommended way to give a gift without any reason at all.
A year of birthdays