Gift-Giving Is About the Buyer, Not the Receiver
Many of us want to feel like we’re benevolent, yet we pay substantial attention to how the process of giving will make us feel about ourselves.
Growing up, Stephanie Michael’s brother longed for a six-foot-tall K’nex Ferris-wheel set. At the time, however, the 8,550-piece toy exceeded their family’s budget. For his 30th birthday a few years ago, Michael, a geriatric social worker in Philadelphia, rallied her relatives to pool their funds and purchase the gift. The gesture moved her brother to tears. “It was that one big special present from our childhood that he really wanted and never got,” Michael told me over the phone. Assembling the set took him
