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That means protecting them from parasites.
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a foxaloner, moxidectin, and pyrantal chewable tablets.
Nexgard Plus chews provide one and done monthly protection
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Use with caution and dogs with a history of seizures or neurologic disorders.
Dogs should be tested for existing heartworm infection prior to starting a preventive.
Ask about Nexgard Plus chews.
Hear that? Pumpkin.
That's fall calling.
And the Pumpkin Spice Latte is back at Starbucks.
From that first sweater to late autumn weather,
it's all a fall in just one sip.
Order ahead on the Starbucks app.
I've always wanted a one-eyed doll.
I'm Angela Duckworth.
I'm Steven Dubner.
And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.
Today on the show, how can you improve your gift-giving game?
I love getting wine so that I can then give it to someone else.
How many bottles of wine are re-gifted?
I think it's got to be over 100%.
Angela, a question today from one Juliana Bonner,
who writes to say that she is a senior economics major at Lehigh University.
Which is close to my hometown here, Philadelphia, that is.
She writes that her dad, whose name is Neil Bonner,
is who, quote, got me into your podcast.
She writes that her dad has undergraduate and master's degrees in economics.
He also has an MBA, and he now works for Nielsen.
She writes, he inspired me to read all the Freakonomics books,
and he was the reason I wanted to major in economics.
But then she says, don't worry, Angela, I am also minoring in psychology.
I get the silver medal.
Juliana continues, my dad and I FaceTime every other week to talk about your show.
And it is one of the things I look forward to the most.
Unfortunately, so that was all great news up till there.
But now, unfortunately, he might be the hardest person to shop for during the holidays.
She says, I have gotten him Freakonomics books the last three years, poor fella.
And vice versa, poor Juliana.
And that is about the only thing he has actually enjoyed.
And now she says, I am at a complete loss.
I am reaching out to you to see if, one, you have any suggestions for economists.
And two, could you do a segment about why gift-giving can be so difficult for some people?
So, Angela, let's start with Juliana's second question.
Why can gift-giving be so difficult for some people?
Do you have any opening thoughts?
You know, I have thoughts both on a kind of personal basis,
because I would not categorize myself as a world-class gift-giver,
but also professionally, as somebody who has looked at the literature a little bit,
partly because I am such a terrible gift-giver,
and I'm looking for research that would help me be better.
Wait, you looked at the research because you're a terrible gift-giver, or because you are a nerd?
Probably both, but I'll just say that, you know,
whereas some people Google the answers to their life problems, I always Google Scholar.
It's a little more efficient for me, may not be for most,
but there have been research studies, also theoretical papers, on this human tradition, right?
I think we are the only species that gives and receives gifts.
Oh, come on, that can't be so.
Well, what is a gift, right? That's the question.
Well, you tell me.
I think that the definition of a gift, I'm sure there's research on that, which I haven't looked at,
but in terms of the psychology of it, I think a gift is not simply a transaction.
So if you go and take your car to Jiffy Lube and you pay your bill, we would not consider that a gift.
But why not? You gave value to another person.
The reason, I think, is that, at least implicitly, what a gift is, is like an unnecessary payment.
It might be expected, but it's optional, and it's not in exchange for some other thing that I'm getting back,
although, again, there's some expectation that you'll probably give me a gift in the future.
Right. So who am I to disagree with how you just defined gift-giving, but sticking with the only animal that gives gifts,
does a gift have to be, let's say, wrapped? Because I could imagine that most other animals would have a hard time wrapping their gifts.
I don't think it's the gift-giving wrapping, because, of course, we give gifts all the time without wrapping, right?
Like, you can send somebody an e-gift certificate. You can buy somebody something off of a registry, and I guess choose not to have it wrapped.
I always find that interesting when somebody registers for a wedding gift from Macy's or William Sonoma or wherever,
and then you have that option as the gift-giver to pay $3.99 to have it wrapped.
The wrapping itself, I think, is perhaps indicative, though, of what this thing really is doing, right?
And what it is is surprise. I think that's why we wrap gifts, that we are trying to prolong the suspense.
I mean, if you just, like, hand somebody, I don't know, like an Alexa or whatever it is, you have zero surprise, because, like, as soon as they see it, they know what it is.
What if you're giving someone a car? Do you need to wrap that?
Well, they do have those, like, huge carbows, actually.
I think only on TV commercials. Have you ever seen one in real life?
My step-brother-in-law is a car salesman, and they have them. And you'll be happy to know, because I've always wondered, they reuse them.
So you can, like, basically rent a bow. Now, that, of course, does not have the surprise thing, because you're not like, gee, I wonder what's under this bow, because it's pretty obvious that it's a car.
Unless you're pretty unperceptive.
But I think it's just, like, a vestige of this thing that we do. Gift-giving is probably, I think, a pretty complex human interaction.
But there's part of it, which is the moment of receipt. And some psychologists have suggested that gift-givers think almost entirely about that moment of the gift exchange.
Like, when Stephen unwraps this, what is he going to feel and think, whereas we kind of neglect, I guess, the rest of the transaction, which is, like, Stephen takes it home, and then Stephen's going to use it or not use it for the rest of his life.
And so the mistake that, again, some psychologists have argued is that the gift-giver frequently errs in only thinking about that very first stage and not thinking about the rest of life.
Well, this explains, A, why Julianna is so concerned about getting something for her father that he will like, and B, why we are generally so bad at giving gifts.
I would also add to the list that it is okay to ask someone. I mean, Julianna could ask her dad. I think that's a really interesting research point you make about essentially the gift-givers thinking short-term versus long-term.
We're thinking about the moment versus the actual use or appreciation of the thing.
Because that's the only part we're around for. Like, what else, you know, would we care about?
Well, theoretically, but a lot of times you give a gift to someone that you spend time with.
Oh, that's true.
So it could be a friend, could be a family member, and so you actually get to see them use it or not use it.
I mean, I've given my wife a lot of gifts over the years, some of which have landed well, a couple of which landed amazingly, most of which didn't land very well.
And sometimes I'll give her a piece of art, maybe by an artist that we both know, hoping that she will love it. Those pieces of art usually end up in my office, I will say.
So you gave yourself a piece of art.
Well, yeah. But, you know, if you look at the data on gift recipients' happiness about the gifts that they get, let's look at holidays, it's pretty bad.
So I'm looking at one survey here, which doesn't feel super scientific, but this one survey notes that 52 percent of Americans surveyed admit to getting at least one unwanted gift over the holidays.
I think that's probably absurdly low. I think it probably should be 98 percent.
I know, I was going to say it sounds like a lower bound estimate.
Here's a little bit different data. This is from Statista, which might be a little bit more robust.
It lists the gifts that people dislike receiving for Christmas. I have to say, some of these really surprised me.
What would you guess would be among the categories that people most dislike receiving for Christmas?
This is like family feud. I'm going to go with clothing.
No, clothing is actually right up there among the favorites.
What?
Among other favorites are household items and electronics. Tech gears, does that say? Electronics and tech gears. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.
Very Radio Shack.
Wait, I want to make sure I'm reading this right.
Yeah. Do you have this list wrong? Because how can clothing, there's the, you know, don't just think about the moment of opening, think about the lifetime usage.
But I think the other thing we're getting to here is like you have to predict what that person really wants.
You have to have empathy. And I think that is no small feat. I think it's very hard to have empathy about the clothing.
I do have this one horrible gift giving story, but I don't know if I'm allowed to tell it.
I feel like I can't be the person to give you permission, but let's pretend I am. Yes, it's okay to tell the story.
So one year, I think it was for my birthday, Jason goes down to the local department store, I guess Nordstrom or whatever, and he goes to the dress section for women.
And he seeks out a salesperson and he describes me, his new wife.
Can I just say everything about this is setting off alarm bells in my mind?
I know, right? It's like a horror movie. You're walking backwards.
And Jason, I'm sure you meant well, but okay, proceed.
It was tragic. It was it was catastrophic. So, you know, let's say it's my birthday.
It was like Valentine's Day. It was like a appropriately terrible kind of like setting for this because expectations, I think, are another nuance of gift giving, right?
Like, what do I think I'm going to get? So we're newly in love. I feel like my husband really knows me.
I get this huge, beautifully wrapped box with a bow on it, Steven.
And I open it up and inside is like the teeniest little dress I've ever seen.
I mean, I couldn't fit my pinky into it. I tried it on and then I wept in front of him like while you're trying it on.
I'm not sure whether he was there for the trying on or not. I do remember, though, feeling.
And again, I can't believe I'm saying this because now I'm a much wiser 52 year old.
But I was like, oh, my God, I'm a whale. I felt the way many women feel when they are given a piece of clothing, which is like four sizes too small, which is you feel four sizes too big.
Can I just say in Jason's defense for a moment? Yeah. Men don't understand women's clothing sizes.
This is why I think that list has to have it wrong. Like who gives clothing and feels confident that it's going to land well?
Well, first of all, there are many items of clothing that aren't a small dress. Yes.
I'm sorry it didn't work out for you and Jason, but all I can tell you is that clothing are among the least disliked categories of gifts that people receive for Christmas.
According to Statista, which now that I look at the data is only a little over a thousand respondents. That's not bad. But listen, I want to get to the gifts that people most dislike.
So clothing, household items and electronics people like. I have to say, the top three surprise me. Number one, flowers and plants. Oh, people don't want them. Yeah, I don't really like them.
OK, good. I'm in that group. Number two, beauty products. Oh, like moisturizer. I don't know. It just says beauty products. I guess it's makeup. It's anything like that. And I could imagine that there is a lot of mismatching going on there.
I think in all these categories, the greater the possibility for mismatch, the greater the likelihood that there will be some dissatisfaction. Right.
Because I may think that you might like a certain category of something. But if I don't know enough about the items in that category, I can imagine the mismatch being quite large.
Well, give me the third one and we'll see if we can make a pattern out of this liquor or drinks, which again surprises me because I've very rarely been ungrateful. Right.
For like a nice bottle of wine. I don't drink wine, but I love getting wine so that I can then give it to someone else.
How many bottles of wine are re-gifted? I think it's got to be over 100 percent. Well, let me ask you this. When receiving a gift that you don't like, should you lie?
You know, there is this developmental psychology task that you use to test kids' self-control. And most people think like, oh, the marshmallow task. Well, there's another task that is sometimes used for little kids.
And that is you give them a gift that you know they won't like. And how do you know? Well, at phase one in this task, you show kids all different kinds of toys.
And sometimes they rig this because like some of the toys are brand new and the other ones are like broken or missing parts. And you ask the like four year old, which of these is your very, very, very favorite?
And they point to the brand new, whatever it is. And then you say, well, which is the worst one? And of course, they point to the doll that has one eye or like this thing that they don't want.
I've always wanted a one eye doll, I have to say.
Well, that is so.
Because I never like dolls because they seem too perfect and perky. But if you'd given me a one eye doll, man, oh, man, friends for life.
I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to make a note of that.
Appreciate it.
But in this task, Stephen, the unwanted gift is what the experimenter then wraps up all nice and fine, probably with a bow. And then, you know, after the kids kind of like forgotten about this, which doesn't take too long.
Therefore, you hand them this gift and they're excited and they unwrap it and then they get this thing they don't want.
And the question is, how self controlled are you? What do you do?
There's I think a pretty reasonable gender difference here, which you can probably guess that, like which kids smile politely and thank the gift giver?
Definitely the boys, because we boys are raised to be conformist, polite and kind to everyone.
Stephen, but no, it's reasonably well established that girls pass this test with flying colors relative anyway to boys.
But my point is that when we receive gifts, it is also part of human custom to express gratitude, whether or not we really want the bottle of wine, the, you know, size zero dress.
It's part of the ritual and if part of the ritual is charade, as some people say, then so be it.
So I would also love to know from our listeners, what's the best gift you ever received? Who gave it to you? Why was it so great?
If you have an answer to that question, make a voice memo, use your phone, just talk nice and directly into the phone in a quiet place.
Tell us your name and send it to NSQ at freakonomics.com and we may play it on a future show.
Still to come on No Stupid Questions, Stephen and Angela debate when cash is an appropriate gift.
I have to say that my kids would vastly prefer Venmo to any other form of gift giving and they have increasingly gotten their way.
Dogs are an important part of our lives and keeping them protected is a top priority, especially against nasty parasites.
That's why you got to check out NexGuard Plus, a foxaloner, moxidectin and pyrantal chewable tablets.
NexGuard Plus chews provide one and done monthly protection that kills fleas and ticks, prevents heartworm disease.
Plus, it treats and controls roundworms and hookworms.
That's a whole lot of protection packed into a delicious beef flavored, soft chew designed to make monthly dosing easy and enjoyable.
So the next time you're at the vet, ask about NexGuard Plus chews. They're the one and done monthly parasite protection you want for your dog.
Use with caution in dogs with a history of seizures or neurologic disorders. Dogs should be tested for existing heartworm infection prior to starting a preventive.
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Now back to Stephen and Angela's conversation about gift giving.
So let's go back to Julianne for a minute. She mentioned her dad is an economist or, you know, studied econ. She herself, she says she's a senior econ major at Lehigh.
So she probably does know about what economists call dead weight.
