7 Signs that you are suffering from Gift Creep

OK, so you've finished your Christmas shopping …. or have you? 

Will you be tempted to buy your friend that 'little extra'? Or find you've bought more presents than you needed and add to the relatives' pile?

Can't stop at one gift per person? 

You may be suffering from gift creep.

People rarely seem to give each other just one present these days. We hedge our bets and give two, or even three, gifts in the hope that one of them will hit the right note.

More than a third (35%) of people say they're disappointed with how the gifts they've bought look when wrapped up and fall victim to 'gift creep', splashing out on last-minute additions, according to research by Currys & PC World.

And nearly a quarter (23%) of people in their survey reported worrying that the other person has spent more, which can lead to nipping out for that little 'extra something'.  

It seems some of us just don't know when to stop shopping!

I've called this behavioural phenomenon ‘gift creep’ and this week, as we get closer to Christmas, is the danger period when we can fall victim to it and start piling on the presents. And that can really add to the cost of Christmas.

Here are my 7 signs you are suffering from Gift Creep:

  

   1.   You’ve finished your Christmas shopping but still buy little ‘extras’ every time you go out

   2.   You worry someone won’t like what you’ve bought them, so you add another gift (like some luxury chocolates) on top to soften the effect

   3.   Before someone visits at Christmas you look around to see if there’s anything else you could give them

   4.   After wrapping all your gifts you feel anxious that the size and number of parcels looks a bit on the small side

   5.   You lie awake at night totting up how much you’ve spent on people - then try to even up the numbers so as not to appear stingy

  6.   You’re all spent out …. but can’t resist those last minute stocking fillers at the till

   7.   You buy a gift for someone, forgetting you've already bought them something, and end up giving them both

So if you've finished, try to draw a line under the shopping and say 'enough's enough'! 

Otherwise, gift creep creeps up year-on-year until it reaches unmanageable, and un-financeable, levels.

To help present buyers, get their presents right this Christmas, Currys & PC World has launched a special Gift List service. The online tool makes getting the right gift easy and, as well as helping you pick the best presents, every day someone will win their entire Gift list throughout the festive period.

Happiness. The best gift you can give.

Imagine a gift that lasts and lasts. that doesn't sit on a shelf. or get eaten. OR get taken back to the shop.

 One that brings happiness not for a fleeting moment. But for weeks or months.

Imagine treating a loved-one to that for just £15 - and at the same time gifting it to a person somewhere who can't afford it.

That's what's behind the Do Happiness Programme. The latest joyful offering from Do Something Different and Action for Happiness. 

 from the latest blog at www.dsd.me :

Created with our friends at Action for Happiness, Do Happiness is a six-week programme of personally tailored small actions (Do’s) designed to help you to develop more happiness for yourself and for the people around you.

How does it work?

It’s simple. You carry out our quick online happiness questionnaire. We then send you daily Do’s: psychologically powerful actions designed by our expert psychologists and picked especially for you to help bring more happiness into your life.

How will it help you to be happier?

The programme has been created around Action for Happiness’ 10 keys to happier living. Based on the latest research, the 10 keys are things that have been see to consistently make people’s lives happier and more fulfilling. Together they spell “GREAT DREAM”:

• Giving
• Relating
• Exercising
• Appreciating
• Trying out

• Direction
• Resilience
• Emotion
• Acceptance
• Meaning

Your Do Happiness programme will give you Do’s that will help you to explore any of the keys that might be lacking in your life, together with some inspirational quotes. All in all you get 32 Do’s over six weeks, with each one inviting you to do things that are known to increase happiness in our lives, and the in the lives of people around us. Some of them will be quite small, like appreciating things around you for example. Others, like carrying out a random act of kindness or contacting someone from the past you have lost contact with, might take a little courage.

Taken together, your Do’s will help you to practise happy habits almost every day for six weeks. Practise making scones or playing badminton for six weeks and you’ll find you’re much better at it by the end. The same applies to happiness!

Share the happiness

Everyone on the Do Happiness programme can share comments in our Do Zone and help one another along. Individuals might choose to sign up with a friend or family member and do it together. It’s also great for small companies or departments within companies who want to boost morale or just have some fun together.

We give one away free for everyone who joins

Because we don’t think money should get in the way of happiness, every place that's bought generates a place for someone that can’t afford it. 

People who can’t afford it can register on the waiting list to get a place as soon as it comes available. 

What’s more, people who buy a place instantly help someone who needs it, which means they’re spreading happiness as soon as they sign up.

How much does it cost?

Do Happiness costs £15 for a six-week programme – a total of 32 daily Do’s sent by email (and/or text to your mobile phone if you’re inside the EU). That’s less than the cost of a massage for something that lasts a lot, lot longer.

Boost your happiness today

Bring some extra happiness into your life, your family and friends’ lives or your business, and look forward to more happiness, one Do at a time.

Find out more or join now

Visit Action for Happiness

Oh it's a hot water bottle cover and other tell-tale signs of failed gifts.

Yes, Christmas has been sprung on us again this year (how did that happen?) and the potential for danger once again is huge. 
And I don't mean danger from fizzling fairy lights that the cat peed on, or from undercooked turkey or oversozzled relatives. 
No, I mean the danger of the disastrous gift. 

A large proportion of presents, probably at least a third, are destined to bring out the liar in us all. The biggest lie spoken over the festive period being, "It's just what I always wanted."
My previous research has found a number of facts about failed festive gifts, i.e.:

• 89% of women will pretend to like a gift they hate, 79% of men will.
• Half of all people get at least one present they dislike.
• Half will lie to a loved one about a gift, pretending to like it.
• 1 in 4 people say giving a gift makes them feel anxious.
• 1 in 5 people say receiving a gift makes them feel anxious.
• Men find the whole gift giving and getting thing maore anxiety inducing than women.

But of course we're all very good at hiding our true feelings about those bungled pressies aren't we? Not so. My research also showed that our true feelings leak out in our non-verbal behaviour, even when we're professing to love something. Notably:

• We make eye contact with the giver if we like the gift. If we don't like it we avoid eye contact.
• We produce a fake smile using only the mouth (not the eye) muscles when pretending to like a gift.
• We display a gift we like and show it off to others, but are more likely to rewrap or cover a disliked gift.

It's also been found that when we don't like a gift (and therefore don't know what to say about it) we're likely to simply announce what the gift is. 

As in, "Oh, it's a HOT-WATER BOTTLE COVER." 

Said aloud, with rising intonation, it's a sure give away you're really thinking "What the hell...."

So how can we avoid making the recipients of our offerings squirm on Christmas Day? 

A number of ‘rules’ about gift exchange emerged from my research. They are

• ·      Appropriateness

A gift that’s right will be of an appropriate value and level of intimacy. It shouldn’t violate relationship boundaries by being too intimate or too extravagant for the current status of the relationship.

• ·      Empathy

A positive gift will be imbued with shared meaning, show understanding of need and signal a connection in the relationship. Failed gifts are often empty of meaning and/or show lack of understanding.

• ·      Effort

A successful gift will have required the giver to put in some effort into choosing the desired object. Gifts low on substance and sentiment send out the wrong message.

I hope all your gifts are well-received this Christmas and that all that come your way are just what you always wanted. If they're not, well, you could always open them in the dark in silence then no-one will ever know....

Do you suffer from hedonic adaptation?

How many of the following statements would you agree with?

• Most marriages start with a burst of joy that slowly fizzles out
• The thrill of winning the lottery would wear off after a while
• A larger salary wouldn’t make me much happier
• Losing weight would only make life better temporarily
• I have many possessions that I once thought were beautiful but don’t now
• Most people stop noticing their partner’s good looks
• I could achieve my dreams and still find I’m dissatisfied
• There’s nothing as exciting as a new relationship

If you answered Yes to more than two or three of these you may suffer from hedonic adaptation. 
But, to be honest, most of us do.  
Hedonic adaptation is simply when happiness wears off (cue Texas singing The thrill has gone). The way the excitement of that top job, windfall or new car fades with time. 
Even winning the lottery produces only short-term ecstasy, for lottery winners are no happier 18 months after their win than non-winners. And I suspect there are many readers of this blog who have stuff in their wardrobes that they once thought was to-die-for that they now wouldn’t be seen dead in.

Hedonic adaptation explains the tide of over-consumption that modern society is caught up in. If we didn’t ‘go off’ things, if last year’s handbag or winter coat thrilled us as much today as when we bought it, we wouldn’t be drooling over this year’s model. The exhilaration of acquisition gives buyers such a buzz that, like shopping junkies, they seek it out again and again. 

How did I ever love this lot?

We all know we should be content with less. We know that twenty pairs of shoes is more than enough for any bipedal creature. But the pull of the mall does, as I said in an earlier blog, threaten to make shopping zombies of us all.

How can we stop this adaptation and prolong the pleasure of our purchases, or our priveleges? What can the field of fashion psychology tell us? Research about to be published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin points to two key ways. Appreciation and variety. In their hedonic adaptation prevention model the authors say:

Appreciation: Stop and appreciate every day what you have and you might be able to eek more excitement from it.

Variety: Use it in different ways, to create more varied experiences, and the bliss could persist.

Why? Because the brain habituates over time that we get bored with things*. The brain loves novelty and surprises, which is why the mantra I swear by, Do Something Different, is once again of huge relevance here.

How? Here are my tips for preventing hedonic adaption and keeping the thrill alive:

• Move stuff around so you continue to notice it.
• Re-position your art or objects of desire in the home every so often so they have new impact.
• Store winter clothes away in summer, and vice versa, and experience the newness of them when you get them out again months later.
• Ditto with young kids’ toys. Divide them into four storage containers. Let them play with one set at a time while the others are hidden. Rotate on a weekly or monthly basis.
•  Better still, stop buying toys and use a toy library or swap with friends. Babies habituate very quickly to stuff and love more novelty than even the most indulgent parent can afford.
• Keep an appreciation or gratitude journal. This trick, from positive psychology, keeps reminding you of the good stuff in your life. It's shown to boost happiness as well as curbing the urge to go and buy more stuff.
• Get excitement from experiences rather than from purchases. The effects are known to last longer and be more fulfilling. Very relevant at Christmas.
• Use your old stuff in new ways, learn how to restyle your old clothes or swap with friends.
• Rent, rather than buy, an outfit for a special occasion.
• Do something different as often as possible in your life.  You’ll come to see that it’s all about what you do, not what you have.

·      * From the paper by Sheldon et al, University of Missouri:

"By definition, adaptation occurs only in response to constant or repeated stimuli, not to dynamically varying ones. Thoughts and behaviors that are varied and unexpected or surprising appear to be innately stimulating and rewarding. Stated differently, after an individual completely understands and expects the experiences that a change produces, the experiences will no longer have the same emotional impact and he or she will drift back towards his or her initial wellbeing. Maintaining the variability and surprises inherent in the experiences and in the emotions forestalls this process… One applied implication of this view is that many people cope with their HA to their prior purchases and acquisitions by overconsuming and overspending. However, if they can continue to derive pleasure from what they already have, in part from varied experiences of those possessions, then they can resist increasing aspirations for even more."

The Challenge of Staying Happier:

Testing the Hedonic Adaptation Prevention (HAP) Model

Kennon M. Sheldon, University of Missouri & Sonja Lyubomirsky, University of California, Riverside

in press, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin