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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Related Reading From the Archive
The Kindness Paradox
Are human beings naturally good or evil, selfish or kind, violent or peaceful? Does civilization make people more moral or less? Would we be happier or less happy living in premodern conditions than in modern mass societies?
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