Don't let pressure of one-upmanship dictate your gift selection

The cardinal rule of gift giving -- it's the thought that counts -- stands even in group settings

2021-02-01

(Press-News.org) There is a considerable gap in our current understanding of gift-giving because much of what has been studied has focused on gift-giving as an affair between just two consumers--a single giver and a recipient. Little is known about the impact other gifts have on the recipient of the gifts, even though some of the most common occasions for giving a gift, such as birthdays, the winter holidays, Mothers' and Fathers' Day, graduations, bridal showers, baby showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, going away parties, and retirement parties, all typically involve a recipient receiving gifts from several different givers.

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business and West Virginia University's John Chambers College of Business and Economics set out to understand gift giving dynamics in these settings and how a giver's and a recipient's evaluation of the giver's gift is influenced by the other gifts the recipient receives.

Across 12 studies examining the behavior of giving and receiving gifts in a multi-giver gift giving setting, the researchers demonstrated that recipients are consistently focused on the thoughtfulness of a gift. Gift givers, however, incorrectly assume recipients' focus is on relative gift value.

"We found that, often times, gift givers believe the recipient's focus is on relative gift value. For example, if I gave one bottle of cheap wine as a gift, but another person gave a bottle of expensive wine, I would incorrectly assume that the recipient would appreciate the gesture of giving the expensive bottle more than mine," said END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Patients with lung cancer reduce smoking rate after enrollment in phase III clinical trial

2021-02-01

(DENVER--February 1, 2021, 10:00 a.m. EST) The first comprehensive, prospective study of smoking habits in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were enrolled in a phase III early-stage trial revealed that there was a high rate of smoking reduction and cessation following study entry, according to research published today in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The JTO is the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer. Continued smoking after a lung cancer diagnosis is associated with an approximate ...

Your toothbrush reflects you, not your toilet

2021-02-01

Good news: The bacteria living on your toothbrush reflect your mouth - not your toilet. After studying microbial communities living on bristles from used toothbrushes, Northwestern University researchers found those communities matched microbes commonly found inside the mouth and on skin. This was true no matter where the toothbrushes had been stored, including shielded behind a closed medicine cabinet door or out in the open on the edge of a sink. The study's senior author, Erica Hartmann, was inspired to conduct the research after hearing concerns that flushing a toilet might generate a cloud of aerosol particles. She ...

Land-use to solve climate change: a focus on livestock

2021-02-01

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU sector) cover the 24% of global emissions, representing the second hot spot in the contribution to climate change after the energy sector. The main drivers are CO2 emissions from deforestation, methane (CH4) emissions produced by ruminant livestock and by anaerobic fermentation of organic matter, mainly from rice crops, and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from fertilizer use. Thus, the land sector plays a crucial role in the contribution to climate change. A new study lead by the CMCC Foundation explores to which extent sustainable land management options applied at small-scale rural landscape level can be a valuable solution for increasing the mitigation potential of the land sector. ...

Are plastics and microplastics in the Ocean on the increase?

2021-02-01

That is the question that Prof. Alan Deidun, resident academic within the Department of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science, along with a cohort of high-profile co-authors, posed within a study recently published in the Microplastics and Nanoplastics journal. Specifically, the study overviews a plethora of marine litter monitoring survey data available for different regions of the world ocean, as well as modelling data, in order to answer this compelling question. The study, whose lead author is renowned litter researcher Dr Francois Galgani from IFREMER, concludes that, despite the well-known increase in the volume of plastics making their way ...

Improved model estimates impact of ozone on soy crops

2021-02-01

The impact of ozone on soybean production can be predicted more accurately thanks to improvements to a computer modelling system. Surface ozone is a pollutant that affects plant growth by entering leaves and reducing the rate of photosynthesis, and rising ozone levels could severely limit production of crops including soy. Being able to estimate this damage on soybean production using a "climate-vegetation model" is vital for predicting global and regional soy yields in the future. This study uses results from a field experiment in the USA, which found that a normal ozone level of 10ppm/h (AOT40) could reduce soybean yield by 10%. At extreme ozone levels - comparable to those observed on very polluted days in some parts of the world - soybean production fell to less than ...

UK life expectancy declining after financial crisis

2021-02-01

Increases in life expectancy in the UK and elsewhere had slowed even before 2016 - and COVID-19 is expected to further eliminate any gains, Newcastle University studies show. After 2011, over the post-financial crisis period the authors find that the UK performed poorly, in almost all measures, compared to the 28 countries of the European Union (EU28). Life expectancy at birth, and age 65, in the UK were increasing rapidly in 2008 but slowed around 2011 and Germany, Portugal and France showed evidence of a similar slowing. Furthermore, years of good health, called Healthy Life Years, at birth in the UK decreased, whereas it increased in most EU28 countries. The UK experienced a period ...

Salt battery design overcomes bump in the road to help electric cars go the extra mile

2021-02-01

Using salt as a key ingredient, Chinese and British researchers have designed a new type of rechargeable battery that could accelerate the shift to greener, electric transport on our roads. Many electric vehicles (EV) are powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but they can lose energy and power over time. Under certain conditions, such batteries can also overheat while working or charging, which can also degrade battery life and reduce miles per charge. To solve these issues, the University of Nottingham is collaborating with six scientific ...

More than meets the eye (of the storm): Typhoons in Korea amplified wildfires in America

2021-02-01

The year 2020 played host to an uncharacteristically large number of natural disasters. The year began with large wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and Australia. A series of wildfires broke out in the American states of California during summer and Oregon in September 2020. In particular, the Oregon wildfire intensified to an uncontrollable extent and was spread over a wide area by strong gusts of wind that carried it forward. These unseasonably strong winds may have been stoked by an unexpected source: typhoons on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. In late August and early September, three storms--Bavi, Mayask, and Haishen--occurred just two weeks apart in the Korean peninsula, causing floods, mudslides, and several casualties. In a recently ...

Origami with DNA

2021-02-01

T-cells are an important component of our immune system: with the receptors they carry on their surface, they can recognise highly specific antigens. Upon detection of an intruder, an immune response is triggered. It is still unclear exactly what happens when antigens are recognised: How many antigens are necessary to elicit an immune response, and does the response depend on their spatial arrangement? These effects take place in the nanometer range - on the size scale of molecules, far below what can be seen with ordinary microscopes. To study all this, tiny tools are needed. Therefore, an unusual method was used at TU Wien: DNA molecules were folded in an ingenious way, similar to the paper folding ...

Sport participation levels lower in students from lower socio-economic groups

2021-02-01

Students from lower socio-economic groups (SEG) are less likely to participate in sport or physical activity at university, research from Sheffield Hallam University has found. The main barriers affecting participation were found to be down to cost of being part of a sports team, lack of time due to academic commitments, part-time working or their social life taking precedence and limited prior knowledge of and participation in sport before starting university. Funded by British Universities and Colleges Sport and published in the peer-reviewed Sport, Education and Society journal, the study surveyed over 700 students from 20 universities and found those that had participated in sport and physical ...

Don't let pressure of one-upmanship dictate your gift selection

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: