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This article explores gift exchange and valuation based on a fieldwork experience in Xlendi Bay, Malta, during which the author gave strangers portrait drawings of themselves for free. Participants systematically gave back more than what was expected (money, drinks, etc.). What does this case study say about the valuation and performativity of (portrait) gifts? By subjecting classic anthropological theories of valuation and gift exchange to an experimental methodology and ethnographic data, this short article shows that monetary value is constructed through a series of aspects specific to each social interaction. In this social setting, several components play a role: (1) the creation of intimacy through timing, corporeal positioning, the author's gaze and the act of giving itself; (2) the potential of identification in the portrait; (3) the visibility of the act of production and the subjective valuation of the gift receiver; (4) the blurred boundaries between commodity and gift; and (5) positionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exchange of gifts, which represent significant functions in the triangle of human, society and culture, are among the cornerstones of social interaction. Having considered the reciprocity concept in primitive society in light of ethnographic data, Mauss laid down how gift exchange and potlatch culture functions in a self-producing cycle. Self-production is one of the basic concepts of Luhmann. self-production of functional systems is carried out over communication channels. This paper is intended to show and stress the importance of gift exchange within the social system with a focus on its past and current functions. Consequently, principles of exchange defined by Mauss is one of the mechanisms that Luhmann calls as a communication system. In Luhmann's words, principles of gift exchange operate as choice and motivation mechanisms and their meaning are ascribed based on the way choices are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights l We model the causes and welfare impacts of the competition of gift giving. l We study gift competition and its impacts by using a unique database in China. l People respond to the average cost of gifts given in their community. l The escalation of gift giving has adverse welfare impacts. l Increasing gift expenditures squeeze spending on other consumption items. Abstract In many developing countries, gift expenses escalate with income growth and account for a substantial share of household expenditure. We develop a theoretical model to demonstrate how (unequal) income growth may trigger "gift competition" and drive up the financial burden associated with gift exchange. We use unique census-type panel data from rural China to test our model predictions and demonstrate that (1) the value of gifts responds to the average gift in the community, (2) the escalation of gift giving may have adverse welfare implications (especially for the poor), and (3) escalating gift expenses crowd out expenditures on other consumption items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines gift giving at Israeli weddings. In accordance with kin selection theory, we hypothesized that wedding guests possessing greater genetic relatedness to the newlyweds would offer greater sums of money as wedding gifts. We also hypothesized that family members stemming from the maternal side (where the genetic lineage has higher kinship certainty) would offer the newlyweds more money than those stemming from the paternal side. Data on the monetary gift sums of the wedding guests from 30 weddings were collapsed according to two criteria: (a) genetic relatedness (0%, 6.25%, 12.5%, 25%, and 50%) and (b) kinship certainty (maternal or paternal lineage). Both hypotheses were supported. We discuss the implications of these data in understanding family dynamics, as well as practical applications associated with the marketing of gifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines socio-cultural circulations associated with dams and other water management technologies in central Japan. Such technologies and the circulations of water they enable link communities across Japan's rural and urban spaces in social, political, economic, and cultural ways. They also produce anxieties by highlighting social inequalities and the disparate impacts of water resource development in modern Japan. Using Makio Dam in central Japan as a case study, I argue that actors in both upstream and downstream communities actively imagine and enact social relationships that work to ease the tensions that arise from unidirectional flows of water by producing sensations of harmony and common identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We utilize the Identity-Based Motivation (IBM) model to examine gift giving within the identity-stripping context of Nazi concentration camps, as reported in the memoirs of Holocaust survivors. By exploring gift giving in this crisis-laden context, we demonstrate the fundamental role gifts can play in reestablishing personal and social identities. In doing so, we provide insights into the motivations for giving that go beyond the existing paradigms that emphasize social exchange, economic exchange, or agapic giving. Further, we introduce the construct of anticipated reckoning, in which people self-regulate their behavior through an imagined future self whom they perceive to judge their current actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on gift giving has devoted considerable attention to understanding whether and how givers succeed in choosing gifts that match recipients' tastes. On the contrary, this article focuses on how recipients' appreciation for a gift depends on the match between the gift and the giver. Four studies demonstrate that recipients are particularly appreciative when they receive gifts that figuratively match the giver, i.e., that contain references to the giver's characteristics, because they perceive such gifts as more congruent with the giver's identity. This effect is not conditional on inferences recipients might make about the giver's motivations or on whether recipients have a good relationship with the giver, but relies on the match concerning core rather than peripheral characteristics of the giver. Importantly for our understanding of identity-based motivation, these findings demonstrate in a gift-giving context that identity-congruence not only drives consumer behavior, but is also appreciated in other people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an act-nomination (N = 15) and an act-frequency study (N = 235), we attempted to assess spontaneously generated reasons for gift-giving and how these reasons differed across the sexes and as a function of individual differences. Primarily, both sexes gave gifts for special occasions and to build or maintain interpersonal relationships. However, men were more likely than women were to want to build and maintain one particular type of interpersonal relationship, that being romantic/sexual relationships. Men were more likely than women were to give gifts to escalate relationships to sex/dating and as a mate-retention tactic. Of all the personality traits examined, it was agreeableness that was correlated with the most reasons to give gifts. Moderation by the sex of the participant suggests that men who are low on extraversion and self-esteem may use gifts to do the "talking" for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the role of gift-giving during the period of the first Hasmoneans. Whereas Mattathias rejected gifts and other grants offered by the Seleucids (and by doing so sharpened the rift between Jews and Seleucids), from Jonathan onwards the Hasmoneans became players within this framework of gifting on the international scene and enter into the complex network of gifting and reciprocity. A distinction between gift, grant and concession is drawn, taking into account various aspects such as valuability (value of gift), status (the social stature of giver and receiver), supplementation (rhetoric that is considered to be part and parcel of gifting in Hellenistic etiquette), as well as compatibility (whether the gift is in proportion to the wealth of the giver and to the occasion it was given). The article concludes with a reference to the possible critical stance of the narrator of 1 Maccabees concerning gifts and gifting adopted by the later Hasmoneans in their relationships with Hellenistic powers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Twin-family designs yield an array of genetically related individuals, conducive to testing evolutionary-based hypotheses regarding social closeness. Monozygotic twins’ genetic identity makes them the “genetic parents” of their nieces/nephews. However, dizygotic twins retain customary aunt/uncle relationships with their co-twin’s children. A 2007 study found that MZ twin aunts/uncles expressed greater social closeness toward nieces/nephews than DZ twin aunts/uncles, consistent with predictions from inclusive fitness theory. Greater social closeness was expressed toward children of female co-twins than male co-twins. These issues and others were revisited in a larger sample of 419 twins. The new results parallel those from the initial study. In addition, twins with female co-twins gave more gifts to nieces/nephews than did twins with male co-twins; however, the effect of zygosity was non-significant. The value of assessing evolutionary psychological questions via behavioral-genetic methods is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically evaluates the recent shift away from a “thin” reading of monetary exchange, which views money transactions as universally market-like and profit-motivated, towards “thicker” readings of exchange, which identify the permeation of wider economic relations and not-for-profit logics. To do this, an empirical study is reported of what happens when money penetrates informal exchanges between family, friends and neighbours. The research findings lead to a more nuanced reading of monetary exchange being brought to light. The main finding is that the imagery and perception of paid informal transactions may be constructed and interpreted in “thin” terms by participants, even if the core motives and personal relations involved in paid mutual aid remain “thick.” Significantly, while such a finding does not constitute a change in behaviour towards “thin” marker readings of economic exchange, it may explain why some people are dissuaded from undertaking paid mutual aid. In this way, while the paper does not reject the social and cultural embeddedness of economic exchange, it does serve to problematize the move towards thicker descriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on political electoral campaigning in a given town in Cameroon. The intention is to bring about a deeper understanding of the nature of ‘democracy’ and its implications for political power sharing and accountability in a given locality in Africa. Based on extensive field research, interviews and participative observation the empirical data gathered are analysed with references to recent academic approaches on democratic developments in Africa. The article discusses concrete ways politicians use to convince potential voters to vote for their party in relation to theories of gift-giving and symbolic capital. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the metaphysics' aspects of causation in gift-giving. It notes that in giving and receiving, there are two aspects which suggest that they affect one another mutually, which make up the word causation. The author seeks to find ideas of the numerous asymmetries at work in the structure of objects given, which believed to be having an imbalance between objects and their qualities as perceived by the recipient of the gift.

The article focuses on gift giving, particularly giving one's own flesh. It offers several perspectives regarding the notion of giving one's flesh as a sign of ultimate gift to the people, manifested from the incarnation of God. It cites the relationship between man and God, wherein giving one's flesh means establishing a bond between man and spiritual state.

The article focuses on the representational process of Felix Gonzalez-Torres' practice of giving liquorice candy as a give-away component of his exhibition. The author discusses the significant value of the liquorice candy and expounded its meaning by giving credit to Gonzalez-Torres' act of giving. The author associated the work of Gonzalez-Torres to the statement of Sigmund Freud that giving is a ritual sacrifice, a social rather than a religious phenomenon.

The article offers perspectives on the social factors of gift which was associated in on-line gaming transactions that transform the narrow notion into a broader experience of entertainment. It cites "Runescape" as an example of on-line gaming in which every action is always a transaction that requires on-screen name and password to enter. It notes that through the gift-object relationship acquired from the game, it enables the gamers to be socially networked.

This article investigates the circulation and consumption of gifts in contemporary, urban Japan. It sets out to challenge key anthropological debates about gifting that, firstly, focus on the inalienable connection between the donor and the gift and, secondly, emphasize the symbolic potential and historical depth of things. The Japanese gifts under discussion, employed in the production and reproduction of the social, cosmic and economic order, are commodities. They can be easily disentangled from the donor and are imbued with the spirit of the recipient through everyday consumption. Moreover, because these gifts are supposed to disappear through use, this article also draws attention to the significance of material loss in the creation of value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern gift literature an anti-utilitarian and a utilitarian view on the gift can be distinguished. From the anti-utilitarian perspective, the freedom of the gift is seen as one of its main characteristics, while the idea that gifts are caught in a cycle of reciprocity is downplayed. In the utilitarian approach, assumptions about rational actors weighing their preferences according to some utility are predominant. In the first approach, reciprocity is seen as undermining 'genuine' gifts. The utilitarian approach does take reciprocity into account but fails to analyse why the principle of reciprocity is so effective. This article attempts to provide such an explanation. By illuminating both the variety of the forms of the gift and the universality of the underlying principle, it is argued that gifts reflect a multi-purpose symbolic 'utility' that transcends both utilitarianism and anti-utilitarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on gender differences in behavior has led to seemingly contradictory findings about generosity. From data generated by 290 subject pairs, we find that women are more sensitive than men to the costs of generous actions when deciding whether to be generous. The factors that affect the level of generosity observed in our experiments are reciprocal motivation, the level of money payoffs, and the level of social distance in the experimental protocol. The relatively greater sensitivity of women to the costs of generous behavior can explain most of the apparent inconsistencies in previously reported findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a critique of the dyadic model of consumer gift giving and an extension of the classic paradigm of gift giving as elaborated in fundamental anthropological and sociological texts. I conceptualize and present empirical evidence for the notion of a consumer gift system, a system of social solidarity based on a structured set of gift exchange and social relationships among consumers. Social distinctions, norm of reciprocity, and rituals and symbolisms are defined as key characteristics of a consumer gift system and are shown to be present in peer-to-peer music file sharing at Napster. Implications for extant research on solidarity, gift giving, and consumption are discussed, and future research directions are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of Merovingians and Carolingians' gift and gift-giving activity. According to the author, gifts and gift-giving practices have been scrutinized by medievalists during late 1950 century. A French sociologist Marcel Mauss made a difference in the perception of the historians and inspired professor Philip Grierson to treat the activity as a special form of transaction.

Gift relations have been traditionally theorized as antinomial to modernity or, within modernity, in the spheres of the personal relations and ideologies of altruism which dwell on the contrast with commodity and often cast themselves as residual, ‘traditional’ domains. This article explores claims to modernity that were made by public gift-giving to a modern head of state. It examines birthday gifts to the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that he received from both his Soviet subjects and international leaders and movements and that were put on public display in 1949-53 in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. This article interprets gift-giving to Stalin as a dramatic example of socialist intervention in the modernist temporality, and it theorizes the notions of time that were culturally constructed through the socialist state gift economy. This article reflects part of an ongoing research project on gift-giving to Soviet leaders. It is based on fieldwork, oral-historical and archival research with designers, artisans, and ordinary citizens who were involved in the production of the gift items, as well as with curators and other specialists involved in this exhibition and in preservation of these gifts in different Russian state museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic evidence, empirical research, and results of experimental studies suggest that people across cultures invest in prosocial behavior, but little research addresses the relative importance of personal versus group incentives to invest in prosocial behavior. We estimate the relative weight of personal and group incentives for households to invest in prosocial behavior using two waves of panel data (2001 and 2002)from ca. 350 Tsimane' Amerindians, a foraging-farming society in the Bolivian Amazon. We found that some personal incentives bore a significant association with household decisions to display prosocial behavior. Consistent with previous research, we found that investments in prosocial behavior first rise and then decline with age, and that cash income bore a positive association with investments in prosocial behavior. We found no evidence that group incentives were associated with personal investments in prosocial behavior once we eontrolled for fixed attributes of villages, but those fixed attributes did explain a significant share of the variation in the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses Iris Marion Young's idea of asymmetric reciprocity that rethinks typical understandings of gift giving. Iris Marion Young's proposals for asymmetric ethical relationships have important implications for democratic contexts that seek to take differences seriously. Imagining oneself in the place of the other or expecting from the other what one expects from oneself levels out differences between people and hinders possibilities of interaction. The conditions of asymmetry and reciprocity of Iris Marion Young's communicative ethics, as well as that of the unexpected as understood within situations of gift giving, bring about new readings of learning and teaching situations. The paper discusses issues of power and knowledge that have important ethical implications for how the relationships between the teacher and student could be imagined and how the teacher and student imagine themselves. Following Derridean underpinnings to Young's notion of asymmetric reciprocity the paper questions pedagogic attempts that seek to minimize the asymmetric positions of the teacher and the student and challenges educational practices based on the reproduction of knowledge and reproduction of persons. The paper follows Young's arguments against Derrida's reading of asymmetry as being one sided. It argues that such a reading does away with the idea of teaching and learning altogether as teaching necessarily involves acts of responding. It continues to argue that Young's conceptualizations of gift giving as reciprocal and asymmetrical open up alternative understandings of the pedagogic relationships between teachers and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Psalm 68 in Eph. 4:8 has proved to be one of the most difficult interpretive problems in this enigmatic letter. In this article I will engage and critique a leading interpretive proposal and then offer an alternative reading that exploits the elements of divine triumph and divine warfare in Ephesians, and that satisfactorily accounts for the quotation and elaboration by the writer in vv. 9-10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relational framing perspective on taboo exchanges addresses a number of issues that have also been the subjects of considerable interpretive research and theorizing. This commentary highlights interpretive work on gift giving, love, sacredness, purity, and boundaries as it pertains to exchange taboos. It suggests that there is a ritual and moral substrate that underlies exchange behaviors. It concludes that the interpretive perspective may deepen relational framing by revealing an ideal moral template that guides behavior and leads to polite ruses in order to reframe behaviors that violate these norms. It further suggests that there is much to be gained by integrating insights from consumer psychology with those of consumer sociology and consumer anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the debate about abolitionist themes in the novel "Sab," by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. Some scholars believe that the novel was banned by colonial authorities not because of abolitionist themes, but of love existing between Creole and slave. The article also compares the themes of gift and social relations to commodity relations, which are also heavily apparent in the book. It discusses gift giving not as an innocent gesture, but as a political question that addresses subliminal interactions.

This article explores gift-giving practices using data collected through interviews in Hong Kong. I argue that Chinese culture promotes the familial over the private self and that the attainment of family-oriented goals represents an important measure of self-realization and self-fulfillment. Although each individual also has a private or inner self (chi), it is also subject to the collective will. This idea is in keeping with Confucian ideals that encourage the individual to focus on developing internal moral constraints and conquering selfishness in the pursuit of social propriety. Furthermore, the boundaries of the familial self are permeable and may include others, such as important romantic partners and, occasionally, close friends who become "like family." In family and like-family contexts, reciprocity is discouraged, and there is no need to build relationships through gift giving. Our research also suggests, however, that there are various gradations of intimacy in gift relationships against the backdrop of important cultural rules such as reciprocity, sentiment, and face. Using the categories provided by our participants, the gift continuum includes "close friends," "good friends," "just friends"/"hi-bye friends," and the "romantic other." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the distinction between gift and market exchange which illuminates some basic and often unarticulated attitudes toward justice in family life. In "Justice, Gender, and the Family," Susan M. Okin has written an incisive critique of contemporary U.S. theories of distributive justice. She exposes the false gender neutrality of theorists who have discussed justice among human beings while ignoring the very different roles and expectations of women and men and who have assumed without acknowledgment the work of childbearing and child rearing performed by women. In "The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property," Lewis Hyde highlights the distinction between gift and market exchange. In both gift and market systems people exchange goods and services, but both objects and persons are viewed quite differently in the two systems. In a market exchange, someone offers a commodity for sale at a price, and someone else buys it. The terms are explicit by itself, the exchange creates no personal commitment or connection between the buyer and the seller. The ideals of gift exchange exemplified by the kula and other historical gift systems are equally found in contemporary Western etiquette surrounding the giving of presents.

Sherry (1983) defines reformulation as the final stage of gift exchange, during which a newly presented gift can impact the relationship between giver and recipient. To date no one has examined exactly how gifts can affect relationships or what aspects of gift exchange contribute to realignment of the giver/recipient relationship. Using depth interviews and critical-incident surveys, our study explores how the recipient's perceptions of the existing relationship, the gift, the ritual context, and his or her emotional reactions converge to affect relationship realignment. We identify six relational effects of gift-receipt experiences. Further, we examine gift-receipt experiences that have a consistent impact in the short and long term, and those where the meanings and relational effects appear to change over time. Implications for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unilateral initiatives are intended to overcome hostility and impasse in bargaining by eliciting trust and thereby allowing for positive bargaining behavior. Previous research demonstrates the effectiveness of unilateral initiatives in the form of small symbolic concessions on the focal issue under negotiation. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of gift giving as unilateral initiatives and assesses the importance of two dimensions of gift giving--the cost of the gift to the giver and the benefit to the receiver. Subjects negotiated with a simulated actor that made unilateral initiatives in the form of gifts. The cost and benefit of the gifts were manipulated, and results indicate that the cost of the gifts was important in determining bargaining behavior (concession making and fine use) while the benefit of the gifts was less so. The effectiveness of gifts as unilateral initiatives implies the generality of the effect of initiatives across exchange domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barone, Shrimp, and Sprott (this issue) attempted to replicate and extend the mere-ownership effect (Beggan, 1992), the tendency of an owner, relative to a nonowner, to enhance the perceived attractiveness of an object merely because it is owned They reported that five experiments failed to provide consistent evidence of the mere-ownership effect We suggest that Barone et al. are excessively critical of their own results and, in fact, do obtain the mere-ownership effect. Our assertion is based on a meta-analysis of their data, an important limitation of their methodology, and problems with their statistical analyses Despite the different slant we give their research findings, we recognize that Barone et al.'s efforts identify a number of issues that could serve as the basis for future research. These topics include (a) determining whether the mere-ownership effect has greater influence on certain kinds of judgments, (b) the role of dissatisfaction with a possession on judgments about the self, and (c) the role of the self in conceptualizing the gift-giving and gift-receiving process. It may also be productive to consider the practical benefits of the mere-ownership effect to society and social interaction. According to the mere-ownership effect, what people have appeals to them more than to others. Thus, the mere-ownership effect may serve to reduce envy and, therefore, reduce social conflict. The mere-ownership effect may also reduce the experience of regret (Brehm, 1966) and lead to enhanced positive affect. To the extent that positive emotions enhance decision making and problem solving (e.g., Isen & Means, 1983; Isen, Means, Patrick, & Nowicki, 1982), the mere-ownership effect may also indirectly contribute to these psychological processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social sciences are dominated by a paradigm that views human behavior as instrumental exchange. It is not surprising that consumer research on gift giving has also been dominated by this exchange paradigm. The present research on dating gift giving among American college students finds support for two variants of this paradigm, but it also reveals an alternative paradigm of gift giving as an expression of agapic love. It is suggested that agapic expressiveness is a needed addition to exchange instrumentalism for understanding gift giving and perhaps for understanding consumer behavior in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using interpretive techniques, we explore the meaning underlying Christmas shoppers' description of some recipients as "easy" or "difficult," in terms of gift selection. We argue that recipients are described as such because they either help or hinder givers' attempts to express specific social roles through exchange. We identify six such roles that givers express alone or in combination to each recipient on their gift lists. These are the pleaser, the provider, the compensator, the socializer, the acknowledger, and the avoider. We discuss the implication; of our findings and suggest areas worthy of further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that examines gift giving in Western society. Gift giving is the cement of social relationships. A range of feelings may be involved in gift giving. A gift may be inspired by sympathetic feelings or feelings of being involved in someone else's life. Mainly anthropologists have studied gift exchange. Anthropologists suggests a relationship between the closeness of social relationships and the purity of the gift, the extent to which it is given as an expression of sympathy and without concrete expectations of returns. They pointed to feelings of moral obligation involved in gift giving and they demonstrated how obligations might lead to patterns of reciprocity in gift exchange. Underlying these theoretical approaches is the relative share of "pure" gift giving, characterized by the absence or vagueness of expectations of return gift, versus gift giving based on expectations of reciprocity or feelings of mutual obligation. The result of the study suggests that friendships are emotionally more important than ties to extended kin.