دانلود رایگان مقاله ارزیابی انگیزه های مجدد هدیه افراد

abstract

This research investigates individuals' motivations to pass gifts on to other people, a practice known as re-gifting. In three studies, we develop and test a tridimensional scale of re-gifting motivations that encompasses: an individualistic motivation, whereby the re-gifter tries to maximize his/her personal utility; a detachment motivation, whereby the re-gifter seeks to preserve his or her relational distance from the re-giftee and/or the first giver; and a virtuous motivation, which captures the re-gifter's morally and socially desirable intent to benefit the regiftee and/or preserve the material value of the gift. The individualistic and detachment motivations are stronger when the re-giftee is a distant other, whereas the virtuous motivation is stronger when the re-giftee is a close other. These results shed light on the social function of re-gifting and suggest that, despite often being stigmatized as a censurable behavior, this practice can sometimes be driven by a morally acceptable motivation.

6. Discussion and conclusions

Despite the growing acceptance of re-gifting (e.g., American Express, 2013), current research still lacks a parsimonious interpretative model of re-gifting motivations and a measurement scale that assesses such motivations. To address this gap, the present work adopted a mixed approach that combines qualitative and quantitative research techniques to develop a measurement scale of re-gifting motivations. The obtained results support a tridimensional conceptualization of such motivations and suggest that individuals might engage in re-gifting to maximize their personal utility (individualistic motivation), distance themselves from other persons (detachment motivation), or act in a morally desirable way by pleasing others and/or putting unwanted gifts to use (virtuous motivation).