Buzz
During the first Christmas my boyfriend and I spent together, we attended a holiday gathering hosted by his friends. Gifts were exchanged, including some through a Secret Santa exchange. My boyfriend had chosen to wrap his gifts in a way that was definitely unconventional: bags with deep wrinkles as if they had been reused, old newspapers wrapped haphazardly around shoeboxes, and one gift in an old grocery bag with a simple bow.
The day before the party, I kindly suggested that we make a quick stop at the store for some proper wrapping paper and gift bags so I could give it another shot. But, in hindsight, we might have been better off keeping the gifts as they were.
A recent study from the University of Nevada indicates that neat gift wrapping can raise expectations about what’s inside, according to the NY Post. When a gift is poorly wrapped, people tend to expect less, which could mean that a nicely wrapped but unremarkable gift might not be as well-received. It turns out that people tend to appreciate the surprise of a less-than-perfectly-wrapped gift more than one wrapped in flawless paper, as messy wrapping suggests a gift with less value.
Researchers discovered that people who received beautifully wrapped gifts that were disappointing felt more upset than those who got the same gift wrapped poorly. It seems that high expectations lead to greater disappointment when those expectations aren’t met. The study also found that this disappointment was more intense when the gift was for a loved one instead of an acquaintance.
For example, if someone hands you a crumpled grocery bag as a gift, you're likely not expecting a Rolex inside. On the other hand, you probably wouldn’t expect a beautifully wrapped gift with an elegant bow to contain a pair of $2 novelty socks.
All of this suggests that a poorly wrapped gift might not be such a bad thing after all. While I still plan on re-wrapping anything that comes in a grocery bag, that slapdash newspaper-wrapped gift may have been exactly what was needed all along.
