Does Asking What Someone Wants Make a Gift Less Thoughtful?

There is a familiar dilemma when choosing a gift:

Should I ask what they want, or should I surprise them?

Asking can sometimes feel like taking the creativity out of gift giving.

You might think:

“If they tell me exactly what they want, is it really a thoughtful gift anymore?”

And because of that, many of us try to find something unexpected.

But research suggests that the person receiving the gift may see the situation differently.

In 2011, researchers Francesca Gino and Francis Flynn published a study titled Give Them What They Want: The Benefits of Explicitness in Gift Exchange in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Across five studies, they found that recipients tended to appreciate gifts they had explicitly requested more than gifts they had not requested. Gift givers, however, generally expected requested and unrequested gifts to be appreciated similarly. ScienceDirect

One reason for this difference was particularly interesting.

Gift givers tended to believe that choosing something the recipient had not requested would signal greater thoughtfulness and consideration.

Recipients did not value that signal as much as givers expected. ScienceDirect

In other words:

The giver may be thinking about how thoughtful the choice looks.

The recipient may simply be thinking about how much they like the gift.

The researchers examined gift giving in several contexts.

One study considered gifts selected from wedding registries, another examined birthday gifts, and another tested gifts chosen from personal wish lists. ScienceDirect

That makes the finding particularly relevant to a common situation:

Someone already gave us useful information about what they like—but we decide to ignore it because we want to find something “more original.”

Sometimes that works.

Sometimes it doesn't.

There is an important distinction here.

Knowing someone's preferences does not necessarily mean knowing exactly what they are going to receive.

Imagine someone tells you:

• They enjoy watercolor painting.
• They like mystery books.
• Their favorite colors are purple and turquoise.
• They would rather avoid very loud toys.

You still have dozens of possible gifts to choose from.

The information simply gives you a better starting point.

You can still choose the:

brand, design, book, experience, color, price or specific item.

The surprise remains.

What changes is the amount of uncertainty.

The study also offers an interesting lesson about wishlists.

A wishlist does not need to mean:

“Buy me exactly this.”

It can mean:

“Here are some things I like, in case that information helps.”

That difference matters.

A useful wishlist can include both:

specific ideas

and

broader preferences.

For example:

Preference:
I enjoy art and creative activities.

Idea:
A watercolor set.

The guest can choose the watercolor set—or use the preference to find another creative gift.

The information supports the decision without making it for them.

We sometimes associate a thoughtful gift with finding something the other person never mentioned.

But there is another way to think about it.

Thoughtfulness can also mean:

paying attention.

If someone tells you what they enjoy, remembering that information and using it can itself be a thoughtful act.

The research does not mean that every requested gift will always be better, or that surprises are a bad idea.

Individual relationships and situations are different.

What it does suggest is that we may underestimate how valuable explicit preferences are to the person receiving the gift.

The next time you're trying to choose a gift, you don't necessarily have to choose between:

asking

and

being thoughtful.

You can do both.

Ask about interests.

Pay attention to preferences.

Look at the wishlist if one exists.

Then use that information to make your own choice.

The goal isn't necessarily to remove the surprise.

It's to make the surprise more relevant to the person receiving it.

This is one of the ideas behind LinGift.

Instead of asking guests to guess, an organizer can share information such as:

• Interests.
• Favorite colors or styles.
• Sizes.
• Things to avoid.
• Specific gift ideas.

Guests can then decide how much of that guidance they want to use.

They can choose a listed idea or find something completely different based on what they learned about the person.

Better information doesn't have to remove the surprise. It can simply make choosing a thoughtful gift easier.

Gino, F., & Flynn, F. J. (2011). Give them what they want: The benefits of explicitness in gift exchange. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(5), 915–922. ScienceDirect