For as long as there have been gifts, we naturally make choices based on the recipient(接受者). But what if we have been wrong all along and that we could turn things around, which not only made gift buying easier, but the recipient happier?

    In 2015, psychologists Lauren Human and Lara Aknin conducted an online survey, which suggested that when people buy gifts, they prefer to choose something based on the recipient's personality and tastes. Most people also said that they preferred receiving gifts bought with them in mind: gifts for them.

    But Human and Aknin wondered if this approach to giving failed to take advantage of the way we connect as people. So they sent 78 volunteers into a shopping centre before Mother's Day. Half were told to buy a card that "reveals(揭示)your knowledge of the recipient" while the others set out to buy a card that "reveals your true self". After the purchase, the givers who had thought partly of themselves reported feeling emotionally closer to their mothers.

    To find out how that approach goes down with recipients, the psychologists did another test, asking more than 100 students to choose a song on iTunes to give to a friend, partner or family member. Each half of the group received the same instructions as the card buyers. Results revealed that recipients of songs that revealed something of the givers felt closer tothemthan those who received gifts bought only withthemin mind.

    Human and Aknin suggest it might apply to all gifts. "If building stronger social connections is the underlying(潜在的)goal" of a gift and surely it should be—then we "may well be advised to offer more self-reflective gifts". In short, for a present to be meaningful, you need to give away a bit of yourself, even if there is a risk that the gift might not so closely suit the recipient's practical needs or tastes as one acquired purely with that in mind.

    Moreover, giving something of oneself can be a safer act, the psychologists added. Because it reduces the risk of revealing poor knowledge of a recipient by attempting to buy something that fits their character—and failing.

    But a note of caution here: what the research does not examine is the potential risk in repeated, unsympathetic giver-centered giving, which, according to Human and Aknin "could signal self-obsession" —and nobody wants to reveal that about themselves.