I was recently struck by a post on Facebook from one of my friends. It reminded me that there is a psychology of gift giving. The post was in regards to the actions of Amazon.com to remove a toy off of the sales roster during the holiday season. This was done because as Amazon put it there were not enough sales of the gift and it did not meet the criteria for holiday sales.
Why does this happen
I decided to look into the psychology of gift giving. The reason why it was so striking to me was because I couldn’t help but wonder how many other toys were on Amazon that might not sell very well. In this case the particular toy is one that has a specific history of being given to children who are critically ill in the hospital. The toy is a small plush stuffed animal puppy named owie bow-wow.
How it came about
My friend had designed the toy after an encounter at a local hospital with a child who was in treatment for cancer. You can read the story here. This is a good cause and I do not understand why the giant marketer would take it off their site without looking at the why of this gift. So I turned to the subject of the psychology of gift giving
The psychology of gift giving
I found some interesting articles that illuminated some very powerful rationale for both consumers and the giant firm Amazon. IN one study (Klein, Lowrey, & Otnes, 2015) the idea of gift giving can often go beyond just those that are given for economic social and altruism. With this case, the gift giving was done to express the humanity of both the giver and the receiver. In this idea of the psychology of gift giving it would seem that not only is the gift given for the purpose to hold high the dignity of the little sufferer but to make the whole process geared toward humanity for a higher purpose.
Another view
That is not to say there are not other studies which see this in a different way. This might help to make sense of how the giant sees it. In (Green, Tinson, & Peloza, 2016) we can see that with the psychology of gift giving, the gift is sometimes given without regard to constructs like social responsibility such as humanity and altruism. They are given based upon what the recipient would like to receive for themselves. In this case I would think that Amazon might see this as a reason to not allow gifts of this type. Who in their right mind would want to receive this gift? It would mean that they are critically ill, alone, fighting in the hospital for their very life. It would bring the thought of illness, sickness and death into the picture. And why would amazon want that?
Well it is a double edged sword. If we can get beyond the fact that this gift is given to those children who suffer and look at another motivation it might make some sense. The other side is that maybe it is real. Maybe this is healthy to look at not to shy away from. And, if I were in this situation and I really wanted to make myself feel better would I like someone to notice and empathize with my suffering? Would I really want to feel part of something, included and loved when I was isolated, lonely and sick? Of course this rhetorical question begs the answer. YES!
A Third Perspective
In the end I looked at this psychology of gift giving in another way. In the article (Baviera, English, & Guillén, 2016) I saw that the study looks at gift giving from the context of an organization. I thought what better organization is there than the human race? This looks at the logic behind the psychology of gift giving. The under explored rationale of the gift giver. It looks at the giving from the aspect of exchange theory, out of duty and out of the logic of the gift itself.
By balancing these three separate ideals within the structure of the organization there is an outcome of enhanced humane relationships which inspire trust and promote creativity. Encouraging the knowledge of this logic of gift giving fosters more humane relationships within organizations and enables individuals to be generous in ways that inspire trust and promote creativity.
So how does this relate to Amazon and removing gifts for critically ill children? Perhaps as one of the largest retailers in the world, Amazon could do right by the organization (aka the human race) and promote gifts by the ideal rather than by the amount of money they make. Although it might be counterintuitive to the business model doesn’t this make more sense for humanities sake?
In the End
In the end this is more about those people, children, those who are suffering and who are recipients of this kindness. The kindness that started with one lonely child in the hospital and moved to something bigger. And if Amazon wants to stifle that then I have to ask why? I sure hope that if my time comes to be ill that instead of taking away from me, giants like this try to make my life just a little better.
References
Baviera, T., English, W., & Guillén, M. (2016). The ‘Logic of Gift’ Inspiring Behavior in Organizations Beyond the Limits of Duty and Exchange. Business Ethics Quarterly, 26(2), 159-180.
Green, T., Tinson, J., & Peloza, J. (2016). Giving the Gift of Goodness: An Exploration of Socially Responsible Gift-Giving. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(1), 29-44. doi:10.1007/s10551-014-2076-0
Klein, J. G., Lowrey, T. M., & Otnes, C. C. (2015). Emotion, Self, and Identity: Implications for and Consequences of Consumer Behavior Identity-based motivations and anticipated reckoning: Contributions to gift-giving theory from an dentity-stripping context. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(3), 431-448.