Behavorial Costs

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Journal of Economic Psychology 15 (1994) 333-350

Behavioral costs as determinants of cost perception and

preference formation for gifts to receive and gifts to give *

Henry

S.J. Robben

**2a, Theo M.M. Verhallen

b

aFaculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft Vnicersiry of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft,

The Netherlands

h Dept. of Marketing and Marketing Research, Faculty of Economics, Tilburg Vnil,ersity, P. 0. Box 90153,

5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

Received December 19, 1991; accepted January 31, 1994

Abstract

Four experiments

on the evaluation of gifts are reported, two on receiving gifts and two

on giving gifts. In a fractional

factorial design we investigated

the effects of personal

relationship,

gift occasion and four cost categories,

namely financial, time, psychic ‘, and

physical costs, on the preference

for gifts to give and for gifts to receive. Participants judged

gift scenarios after reading descriptions

containing external characteristics

of gift situations.

In the experiments

on receiving gifts, manipulation

of the behavioral cost variables induced

a cost perception

and a corresponding

preference

effect: Gifts that were evaluated as more

costly in terms of time, mental and physical effort were significantly

preferred.

The

gift-giving experiments

showed no substantial relationship

between perception

of costs and

preference

for gifts to give, although mental effort appeared to exert a significant effect on

both cost perception

and preference

for a gift to give. The results suggested that in receiving

* The support of the Department of Psychology,

Tilburg University, and Maxell Netherlands

is greatly

appreciated.

We would like to thank Marcel Croon for methodological

and analytical assistance,

two

anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions,

and Eszter Boross, Jan Schoormans

and Paul Webley

for their comments on an earlier...