"Wednesday Phew "[wenz-dey-fyoo] definition: A moment that brought a sigh of relief, sarcastic or not.
It only took one Stanford professor, one associate-Stanford professor, and one Harvard professor to come up with an answer most of us struggle with daily:
When buying gifts, buy the one they told you they wanted, not the one you think they will appreciate.
In an article published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the professors examined the results of five different social experiments enabling them to come up with this stunning revelation. They concluded that the recipients of gifts, including those who received them as wedding presents, appreciate them more if they are gifts asked for, versus ones that are creatively chosen.
"The strange thing is that this breakdown between givers and receivers happens all the time, even though most people have been both givers and receivers often in the past, and therefore they should have some understanding of the other party's perspective," Francis Flynn, Professor at the Stanford School of Business said commenting on the results. This understanding of “givers and receivers” will make millions of peoples lives a lot easier, but the benefits do not stop there. The findings also suggest that people actually find getting the gifts they asked for to be more “thoughtful and considerate.”
Based on this research, and we all know research is never faulty, it is clear that we have had this all wrong! Stop spending hours searching for that unique gift and just ask them what they want, and then give it to them. Better yet, ask them to buy it for you, wrap it, give it to themselves, and then send you a thank you card.
Phew! So this Father’s Day, make sure all the kids ask Dad what he wants this year instead of them wasting all that thoughtful time on that cardboard, glue and glitter craft mash up. Though it will be prominently displayed at work, and will make him smile proudly, just buy him what he told you to.
So as always, whether this is worthy of a “Wednesday Phew” moment, sarcastic or not, that is up to you.
Credits:
San Francisco Chronicle
Stanford Graduate School of Business
0 comments:
Post a Comment