Consumers in the U. S. spend billions of dollars a year on gifts wrapping. Two colleagues and I wondered whether all that time and effort is actually worth it. So we conducted three experiments to explore the impact of gift wrapping.
In the first experiment, we involved 180 students, who were given a gift—a coffee cup with the logo of one of two NBA basketball teams, the local Miami Heat or rival （竞争对手） Orlando Magic. Every participant was a fan of the Heat and they obviously didn't support the Magic. We gave half of the students a desirable gift, while the others received something they disliked. Finally, half of the gifts were wrapped neatly, while the rest looked sloppy （凌乱的）
We found that those who received a sloppily wrapped gift liked their present significantly more than those who received a neatly wrapped gift—regardless of which cup they got.
To understand why, we asked another set of students to report their expectations about either a neatly or sloppily wrapped gift. Results showed that expectations were significantly higher for the neatly wrapped gifts, However, receivers of the neatly wrapped gift reported that it failed to live up to their expectations, while those who got the sloppily wrapped gift said it surpassed （超过） their expectations.
In our final experiment, we surveyed 261 adults and asked them to imagine receiving either a neatly or sloppily wrapped gift. This time we instructed half of them to imagine the gift was from a close friend, while the other half believed it came from an acquaintance（熟人）. Then we revealed the gift and asked them to rate it.
When it came from a close friend, receivers ended up liking the sloppily wrapped gift more. However, for the gift from an acquaintance, receivers preferred it when it was neatly wrapped. This occurs because these participants used the wrapping as a cue for how much the gift-giver values their relationship.
So if you're stressed over gift wrapping this holiday season, consider saving yourself effort and money by wrapping your friends" gifts haphazardly （随意地）. But for someone you don't know quite as well, it's probably worth it to show that you put in some effort to make it look good with all of the beautiful bows.
