This Is The Secret To Giving The Perfect Gift, According To Psychology

The holidays are usually a time of excess, but this year we're proposing a new way to gift. Stay tuned for a curated list of products that epitomize the principles of mindbodygreen: environmental responsibility, community connection, and health benefits, to boot. To kick it off, we're diving deep into what giving really means anyway—and how to gift in a way that's truly meaningful.

Exchanging gifts has historically been a way to demonstrate affection and strengthen relationships—so why has it become so damn stressful? To kick off this holiday season, we're making it easier with tips to help you pinpoint the presents that'll bring the most joy to you and the person on the other end of the wrapping paper.

At its core, buying a gift for someone is a guessing game. "Gift giving is basically an exercise in mind reading—and human beings aren't very good at mind reading," says Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist who studies how time, money, and technology shape human emotion and the scientific advisor at Joy, a phone app that helps users assign a happiness value to various purchases.

Dunn explains that when most people need to get a gift, they start by considering what they themselves like. From there, they decide how to tweak their perspective to be more like the person they're buying for.

Dan Ariely, a New York Times best-selling author and behavioral economist, further breaks down this tricky thought process in the Wall Street Journal, writing, "The great challenge lies in making the leap into someone else's mind... We are all partial prisoners of our own preferences and have a hard time seeing the world from a different perspective." Research confirms this idea that adopting new perspectives is easier said than done, especially when you consider the fact that people's wants and needs are ever-changing.

And while it's true that sometimes it's the thought that counts, that's not always the case according to a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. "Gift givers tend to overestimate the extent to which recipients actually even consider the thought behind a gift. In general, they don't have a window into how much thought was put into it," Dunn says. In other words, givers tend to focus on the thought while recipients just focus on the gift.

Just like our psychology reveals what makes us subpar gift givers, it can also help us turn into better ones.

For example, when you know how hard it is to take on someone else's perspective, you can give yourself permission to seek outside help with gifting. "If you're buying from someone similar to you, that's where you're going to be most successful," says Dunn. "Even if you don't adjust appropriately, it doesn't really matter because if you like it, they'll probably like it too." So don't be afraid to ask for input from friends or family who share similar interests with the person you're buying for. Say, if you're struggling to decide what to get for your friend's child, ask your nephew who's a similar age about what's on their list that year for some inspiration.

That brings up the next secret to successful gifting: listening to what people actually want. While it may seem boring to get someone that sweater they explicitly asked for, at least that way you know they'll use it. If you don't want to question them directly, you can ask friends about anything they may have mentioned or even do some sleuthing on their public Amazon wish lists.

One safe bet that's usually a good present for everyone? Time. Have a friend who never gets a moment to herself? Pay for a babysitter for a night. Or gather a few people to go in on a group gift of hiring a house cleaner for her for the year. "People don't often think about those kinds of gifts, but they could be really cool because we have good evidence that they make people happier than material things," she says.

Approaching gifting from this more practical place can help you keep it meaningful and intentional—and it's something you can do all year round. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the duo behind the Netflix documentary Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things, discussed this idea at length in a recent podcast episode, saying, "Obligatory gift giving has become part of our culture. It's become one of the love languages. I don't think gift giving is a love language—I think contribution is. And contributing to other people's lives is just as meaningful outside of Christmas and birthdays."

Another gift category worth exploring this year is—you guessed it—experiences. In general, people seem to elicit more happiness from experiences than material things. That's because when you receive experiences, you have the initial thrill of learning about what you'll be doing, but unlike with physical items, that excitement lasts for days or weeks leading up to the event itself. There's also reason to believe that experiential gifts strengthen the relationship between gifter and giftee.

Not only do experiences, donations, and practical gifts tend to make people happier, they're better for the planet too.

According to one 2017 survey, Americans spend up to $16 billion a year on holiday gifts that won't be used. When presents sit around to collect dust, it's a waste of the resources that went into them—so let's all try to be a little more curated with our gifting this year for the sake of our environment.

We're here to help. Everything you'll find in mbg's 2018 gift guides is responsibly produced and made to be cherished for years to come. Happy holidays!