Gift Relationship

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4th May, 2011 British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Glasgow Symposium:Phenomenological Psychology and the Question of Complexity

The gift relationship

Peter Ashworth1

Abstract

In early anthropological work, Mauss (1990/1925) argued that the exchange of gifts was a majormeans of maintaining social cohesiveness, and entailed both self-interest and concern for others.

Derrida (1992) radicalized this finding in claiming that all gift relationships are in danger of being

reduced to relationships of economic exchange. Effectively, it may be that gifts always have

strings attached. This position is reminiscent of the exchange theory of the social behaviouristsand of Homans (1961) sociology. But what is the complexity of the gift relationship?

The work reported in this paper involves the qualitative analysis of accounts of giving and

receiving. Eighteen written accounts of gifting are analysed using established phenomenological

tools of reflection as the basis of a preliminary description of the various meanings involved ingiving and receiving. It is an attempt at a phenomenology of the gift relationship, that is, a

descriptive account of the essential features of the experience(s) involved.

It is shown that the dynamics of the gift relationship are extremely varied (a gift can evoke anumber of emotions; the urge to reciprocate varies in strength and form, etc). In particular its

relationship to conventional economic exchange is by no means straightforward.

The implications of the phenomenology of the gift relationship are far-reaching since many eventsof social experience have gifting features (for example any encounter in which gratitude may be

evoked; any encounter in which a power-asymmetry has been graciously ignored by the morepowerful participant; any encounter in which a normal economic exchange has been complicated

by gifts of the bakers dozen kind).

It is argued that the use of economic models in psychology is to be attempted only with

circumspection. In particular, they should be restricted to the realm of thepractical- not theexpressive (Harr, 1979).

The Gift Relationship

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1Contact: Professor P D Ashworth, Faculty of Development and Society Graduate School,

Sheffield Hallam University, Unit 1, Science Park, Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB.

Email: [email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Introduction

Laidlaw (2000, p 621) puts the problem precisely:

What is the basic, irreducible idea of a gift? One party makes over something of theirs toanother. There is no 'price', and there is no recompense. It is given, and that is that. ... But if

we reflect on what would need to be the case for a pure and incontestable example to occur,

then it emerges as deeply paradoxical.

This from a social anthropologist. But many approaches to psychology would not just regard thegift relationship as paradoxical, but would regard it as mis-described. It is, properly viewed, nothing

but an instance of exchange. It is part of a cycle of response and reinforcement, or it is providing abenefit to another in recompense for expected or past benefits from them.

In this paper we try to explore the gift relationship and come to a preliminary phenomenological

description which will allow psychological research to avoid over-hasty reductive accounts of givinggifts, if such reductive accounts fail to cover the actual phenomenon.

The gift relationship and economic exchange

It was Marcel Mausss short anthropological monograph The Gift(1990 / 1925) which opened up

this realm of research within the social sciences. It remains a central reference in thecontemporary literature. Yet it carries many of the ambiguities of the idea of the gift. and it an aptstarting point for this study

In The Gift, Mauss reflected on a widespread custom noted by anthropologists (notably

Malinowski, 1922, 1926), for one tribe to give another, maybe very distant tribe, an exceedingly

generous gift ceremony, which might last for some period of time. In such an event one tribe would

conduct the ceremony for the other; at some later date the recipient tribe would take its turn ashost. A key feature for Mauss of these customs is that, though they constitute economic systems,

they are seen by their participants primarily as gift events rather than events of market economics.The cardinal function of these customs is the cementing of social relations.

It seems in Mausss account of the gift - though Mauss does not develop it - there is anunderstanding by participants that the event is indeed one ofgifting, and such an understandingis

necessary to the establishment of social cohesion. Being given a gift creates an obligation and tobe obliged is to be socially related. However, because one has been given a gift and one is obliged

to reciprocate means that the gift is now no longer precisely a gift but is one phase in a cycle of

exchange. This aspect of the gift - that it imposes an obligation and moves into the realm of

economic exchange - must be left unexamined by participants if the gift is to have its cohesiveeffect, just as a birthday present must be accepted with gratitude as an uncoerced expression of

affection if it is to have its effect (rather than be thought of as something that must be reciprocatedlater). Mauss wrestles with this, as Laidlaw (2000) shows.

Mauss tells us ... that the transactions he describes 'take the form' of gifts. He never

elaborates exactly what this implies, except for the repeated use of expressions such as'free','disinterested', and 'generous'. So the point is that although these transactions areserious politics and serious economics ... they are 'given as' free gifts. The complementary

move is where Mauss says that, their gift-like quality notwithstanding, they are always also

obligatory (1990 / 1925, e.g. pp 33, 65, 68, 73). So these transactions both are and are not

free gifts. ... (Laidlaw, 2000, p 627)

In fact we see a certain hesitation towards the end of Mausss (1990 / 1925, pp 72-3) book wherehe remarks, The terms that we have used - present and gift - are not themselves entirely exact.

The idea Mauss is dealing with seems rather to be a hybrid of the free, purely gratuitous gift and

purely utilitarian exchange.

A number of functionalist anthropologists (e.g. Douglas, 1990; Laidlaw, 2000; Venkatesan, 2011)have argued that the idea of a free gift with no obligation on the part of the recipient just does not

work. With the anthropological focus on the forces that are conducive to the coherence of asociety, gifting only makes sense insofar as it leads to gratitude or some other sense of obligation


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and pressure to reciprocity. A free gift has no anthropological reason. (For debate on this, seeSchift, 1997; Godbout and Caill, 1998; Godelier, 1999, and Komter, 2005.)

This seems to be mapped at the individual level. When discussing the gift of blood in blood

donation - voluntary and unrewarded in many national systems - Titmuss (1970, pp 268-269) inThe Gift Relationship; From Human Blood to Social Policyalso pointed to the only-partly altruistic

motivation of donors.

...No donor type can be depicted in terms of complete, disinterested, spontaneous altruism.

There must be some sense of obligation, approval and interest; some feeling of inclusion insociety; some awareness of need and the purposes of the gift. What was seen by these

donors as a good for strangers in the here-and-now could be (they said or implied) a good for

themselves - indeterminately one day.

There is a flourishing literature on health-related giving. On blood donation, see for example

Piliavin, 1990; Robinson, 1996, and Busby, 2004. Also see discussion of the lay use of a rhetoriccontrasting gift and commodity in donor-assisted conception (Shaw, 2007) and the sex-selection of

foetuses (Scully, Shakespeare and Banks, 2006).

Mauss and Titmuss seem to show empirically that, in very different contexts, what seem to be pure

gift relationships actually entail reciprocity and are therefore less removed from economicexchange than we might have supposed. Derrida (1992 / 1991), moves the debate beyond the

empirical by contending that the notion of a pure gift is unstable logically. If, The basic, irreducibleidea of a gift, as we saw in Laidlaws account, is that, One party makes over something of theirs to

another; there is no price, and there is no recompense, then, Derrida argues, any way in which therecipient feels obligated to the donor, or the donor feels recompensed or worthy of recompense for

the gift, thereby undermines the gift - it becomes simply economic exchange.

It is thus necessary, at the limit, that [the recipient] not recognise the gift as gift. If [they]recognise it as gift, ... this simple recognition suffices to annul the gift. Why? Because it gives

back, in the place ... of the thing itself, a symbolic equivalent. (Derrida, 1992 / 1991, p 13)

So, for example, when I realise that I have been given a present, my gratitude reciprocates the gift.A pure gift turns out to be impossible as long as it is recognised as a gift and the donor andrecipient see themselves as donor and recipient, and there is a norm of reciprocity. Now, in

criticism of Derrida, it is very likely that, if we were to quantify the cost and the benefit of an actual

instance of gift and gratitude, we would find an inequality. More than this, gift and gratitude are

surely incommensurable. In any case Derrida has a very broad view of what constitutes aneconomic exchange and there is a basis for dismissing his in-principle argument against the pure

gift. (For such criticisms of Derrida, see Jenkins, 1998, and Venkatesan, 2011.) However, it is wellto note that it is possible to argue that both logic and some evidence tell against the idea of the gift.

Also ranged against the idea of a pure gift are the reductivist models of human social behaviourput forward by psychologists such as Thibaut and Kelley (1959) and sociologists such as George

Homans (1961). Social exchange theorists (see Heath, 1976) model all human behaviour in termsof utilitarian decision-making. The utilitarian model of economic exchange, portrays the person as a

rational decision maker within a social world construed as a market, and with decisions (whether

conscious or not) based on cost-benefit analyses (for an account of gifting in these terms, see

Thomas and Worrall, 2002). This view coincides, in the end, with that of the functionalanthropologists. What would be the purpose in human relations of a pure gift?

Models of human social behaviour based on utilitarian micro-economics are increasingly

prominent. Sometimes these models are employed in practical settings - as when Westminster City

Council (2011) uses such arguments in putting forward proposals to outlaw charity-workers effortsto comfort rough sleepers. This is despite their reliance on economic hypotheses which are not

open to test (Redman, 1991; Hausman, 1982; Ashworth, 1983), and despite the fact that basic

regularities in human behaviour which are assumed in micro-economics have come underpsychological critique (Kahneman, 2003).

The issue, methodology and method


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The question that guided the study was whether the experience of gifting was reducible to, oridentical with, or distinct from economic exchange - is the gift effectively a commodity in the

experience of participants in the gift relationship or not? In order to tackle this issue, the approachof the research was to use qualitative data (brief written accounts of experience of giving or

receiving gifts) as a basis for a preliminary phenomenological description of the gift relationship.

Having developed such a description, it would then be possible to address the question of whetheran economic model would cover the experience.

The methodology is fundamentally that of Giorgis (2009) Husserlian phenomenologically-based

psychology (though see Ashworth 2006a,b; 2007 and 2009 for a particular emphasis on the

centrality for phenomenological psychology of the lifeworld).

The key methodological feature is for the researcher to adopt a phenomenological approach, that

is, to make every attempt to focus exclusively on the research participants experience of the giftrelationship in order to achieve a description of this experience - or it may be to arrive at moe than

one description if it so happens that there is no single phenomenon which can be recognised asessential to the gift relationship. This approach is the phenomenological reduction.

In trying to achieve the phenomenological approach, any assumptions, etc., which would tend to

distract the researcher from a focus on the experience of the research participant must be setaside, bracketed, subjected to the epoch. We have already implicitly set aside the issue of whatresearch discipline we are primarily working in - is it economics, psychology, social anthropology?

No matter. We have also set aside the issue of the cause of any experience we discover - we are

focusing on experience as such. We also find that the hugely contentious idea in the literature that

a gift might, or might not, necessarily evoke a motivation to reciprocate, a feeling of obligation,must be set aside. And so on (see Ashworth, 1996; 2007). It needs to be stressed that, setting

these and other matters aside in order to pay proper attention to the research participantsexperience, does not at all mean that they might not re-appear in the findings (gift might indeed

evoke a sense of obligation). But this happens only if it is clear from the meanaing of the

experience. It is not imposedon the description of the experience.

Phenomenology is not merely a matter of going through some mechanical process of analysis ofthe qualitative data and thereby producing a description of experience. The reading of the data is

an in-depth one so - for example - it is right to report as part of the experience of research

participants unstated aspects of the persons awareness of the gift relationship which they must be

assuming, taking for granted, for the experience to make sense. Husserls (1983 / 1913) use offree imaginative variation to get to grips with the essentials of an experience is one appropriate

method. Jonathan Smith and others (Smith, Flowers and Larkin, 2009; Langdridge, 2007) insistthat this makes the methodology interpretative (they draw on a certain understanding of Heidegger

(1962, 1988) to found this contention). In my view this shifts attention illegitimately from the work of

phenomenology as developing a description of experience. For this is the aim, for the researcherthemselves to reach a description of the key features of the research participants experience - the

essence. Reflexivity is entailed. Linda Finlay has rightly found it useful to develop the details ofreflexivity in phenomenological research (e.g. Finlay, 2008), for reflexivity has not usually been

thematised by phenomenologists though it is necessary and intrinsic to phenomenological methodat every stage.

Having reached a description, or some discrete descriptions, claims made about the gift

relationship are open to test, either by phenomenological replication or (and here mixed methodswould come to the fore) by the use of hypothetico-deductive logic. In this case phenomenological

psychology becomes an example of the realm of discovery: as Reichenbach (1938) pointed out,

prior to hypothesis testing comes the generation of hypotheses - he named the earlier creativeprocess the realm of discovery, and the later testing of the hypothesised discovery the realm ofjustification. Also, the notion of the gift relationship which is developed phenomenologically may be

used to form part of a testable causal hypothesis.To actualise the methodology just outlined, a sample of 18 research participants was built. Of

course, since we cannot guess what the nature of population parameters in the case of gift


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relationships might be, sample is a misnomer. But some variety of person is plainly advisable ifthe description of the phenomenon is not to be artificially restricted. Each participant was given a

written request:

The Gift - Receiving and Giving

In this study I am asking you to write about giving and receiving a gift. The nature of the gift

doesnt matter - you can interpret gift as broadly or narrowly as you like.

Please describe the giving or receiving of a gift. What were your feelings about the gift,yourself, the giver / recipient and any other relevant people? Did it affect your relationship to

them? Any other circumstances at all would be of interest to me. Write in some detail if youcan. Many thanks.

Findings - the phenomenology of the gift relationship

The features which emerged as key to the understanding of the gift relationship had different levels

of salience in different accounts, though my contention would be that they do apply in all instancesof gifting. I will discuss them by providing extracts from participants writing which bring them out

particularly graphically.

In the first example, a feature that is taken for granted in most accounts came through clearly, andwe would be right to regard it as an essential aspect of giving generally. This is simply that there isa donor and a recipient.

a. Appropriateness: The occasioned nature of a gift

It was a gift of money, by cheque, from my stepfather. This was unfamiliar as very little

contact had occurred for over 6 years. On visiting my stepfather he wrote a cheque as agift

I had not told him I had changed my surname. I was in a dilemma, as he wanted to do

something nice but I wasnt ready to tell him Id changed my name. Having a very shortmoment to decide, I explained that I had changed my name. He didnt really listen and said,

Ill leave it blank. I accepted the cheque and thanked him.

I havent cashed it yet. It sat on the shelf tied up in that moment. I think I feel some guilt at

not telling him sooner about my name change. Im also disappointed that it happened as itdid. He wanted to do something nice but for me it was the wrong time. Id rather not have the

money and would have preferred more time to get to know him again. (Account 14)

As we have seen, Laidlaw (2000) hazarded a statement of the basic nature of a gift, One party

makes over something of theirs to another. There is no 'price', and there is no recompense. It is

given, and that is that. But in Account 14 we see that the right to be a donor or recipient is notunproblematical. Yes, a gift has to be given and received, but sometimes it is inappropriate to offer

a gift - here, because the gift ought to be a token of affectionate recognition of relationship

between stepfather and step-daughter, and the relationship is insufficiently established for such agift to be offered.

More generally, we see that gifts are events, occasions, and have an appropriateness which

includes those who play the roles of giver and recipient, but also includes time and place.

b. Reciprocity - Market economics or ?

I had bracketed reciprocity, being wary of projecting this feature onto the accounts. Yet it was

indisputable that something like exchange was reported as part of the experience of the gift

relationship. But was it economicexchange? Was the gift simply a commodity? Here are twoinstances. In the first, a recipient fells the pressure to repay his benefactor by being successful

through the opportunity which the gift has provided. But is making the giver proud that they gave

me the gift equivalent to an economic exchange?


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It has put pressure on my current situation as I want to make the giver proud that they

gave me the gift, this is good pressure though as it gives me more motivation to succeed. I

hope to prove to the giver how grateful I am by being successful. ... (Account 5)

In the second account, a giver notes that recipients show affiliation (loyalty, respect) to her - which

she interprets as reciprocity. But again, is this equivalent to economic exchange?

I give and also advocate giving in the context of Christianity. On the recipient, it hasaffected my relationship to them. In one way, giving has attracted much loyalty to me from

the recipient. Secondly giving has earned me a lot of respect. (Account 9)

Here is a third instance that looks superficially to be an example of the pressure of the norm of

reciprocity:

On the eve of my graduation from my undergraduate degree course I went out for dinner withmy Dad and elder sister to celebrate my achievement in obtaining a degree. Half way

through the meal my sister produced a gift bag out of her handbag. She passed the gift

bag across the table to me and says Well done. I was both stunned and touched that she

had gone to such an effort to say well done. Inside the gift bag was a small charm for mycharm bracelet.

However a feeling of guilt also came over me. My sister graduated 3 years before me and I

was desperately trying to think back to her graduation and remember what (or if at all) I had

bought for her. She had clearly put a lot of thought into the gift she had given me and I reallyhoped I had done the same for her. (Account 10)

On the basis of the presupposition of reciprocity, one could understand this account as meaning

that the writer wanted to check that the give-and-take of the market had been properly observed.

But surely this is not the correct understanding. If reciprocity is the right word for this, it is areciprocity in marking affection. How embarrassing it would be for this recipient not to have shown

similar affection to her sisters gesture when she had earlier been able to offer her sister a

congratulatory gift.

But here is an instance where giving does show features of market reciprocity:

This was a gift to an acquaintance who I was attempting to influence in that he would come

and play for a cricket team that I help run. He has a liking for JD whiskey and it had been his

birthday so I used this as an excuse to present him with this gift for his birthday whilst

strategically trying to have him obligated to me. ...

I was also attempting to enhance our relationship which had not been particularly close. I

held him in high regard with reference to his cricketing ability and knowledge and more than

worthy of my engagement with him on cricketing matters. The gift therefore was a token of

this regard a were chums together on an equal footing of expertise so lets get together.

(Account 1a)

The economic approach to giving would have no difficulty with this example. But thephenomenology to the gift relationship certainly does! The meaning of this instance places it in a

different category to the others. Here the gift is a commodity judged to have market value in theeffort to influence the recipients behaviour. (It would, for example, be reasonable for the donor to

consider whether a less-expensive gift would do the job as well, in a cost/benefit analysis). If this isa gift relationship, it has different essential features.

This example helps establish the meaning of reciprocity in the gift relationship.

c. Aesthetics of giving

Consider this account:

I always pride myself on trying to buy something that they actually want, or something that

makes reference to an in-joke, shared experience or fact that I know about them. I also try to


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buy most things second hand (ebay / charity shops) for cheapness and out of care for the

planet!

In this case I knew Keith was (a) a big Oasis fan and (b) had just moved to near, or at least

the same county as Knebworth. So I bought him, off eBay, an original handbill/poster from

Oasiss famous open air gig at Knebworth, c. 1996, famous for the line, Did Jesus ever play

Knebworth? I also bought a cheap frame and framed the poster. Keith liked the present and

clearly appreciated the thought involved. I felt a mixture of genuine happiness and

smugness! (Account 2)

Other accounts told of gifts that somehow had not worked. There is a thoughtfulness involved in

giving - part of the expression of affection can be showing awareness of the preferences of therecipient, and this can be erroneous. An aesthetics is involved.

Notice also in Account 2 that there can be immediate gratification for the donor - here a smug

awareness of ones skill in the choice of present. In other examples the donor may feel pride or

empathic pleasure, or the donor can benefit from the gratitude of the recipient. Some writers on the

gift relationship (such as Derrida, 1992 / 1991) have argued that the emotional reward for thedonor means that a gift can be a pure gift only if the donor does not know how the gift is received,

or even only if the donor gives into the void, as it were, without thought of the donor. Venkatesan

(2011, Note 8, p 54) comments:

It seems to me that Derridas argument that the gift is impossible is based on a zero-sum

type of logic, wherein giving and taking are equally balanced out.

Venkatesan goes on to suggest the need for research of the kind we are now describing:

It might be fruitful to explore perceptions of giving and taking that include emotions such as

regret as well as retrospective calculations and unanticipated bonuses.

Though his objection to Derrida is right, Venkatesan is still thinking in terms of market economics

with its rational, self-interested seller / purchaser, governed by cost / benefit calculations. We have

by now seen that this is an inappropriate model for the gift relationship.

Summary and conclusions

There are several other key features of the gift relationship, such as the formation of status

differences (Bienenstock and Bianchi, 2004); the creation of obligations and the establishment ofintimacy (Beck and Clark, 2010), and even the possibility that a person might find the anonymity of

the market preferable in some circumstances to the social involvement which a gift relationshipbrings (Marcoux, 2009). But we move to the phenomenology of the gift relationship, which includes

the following features:

A gift is occasioned, and can be appropriate or inappropriate as regards time, place, and

the identities of the donor and recipient.

A gift is specifically interpersonal. It is aboutthe relationship and cements, renders salient,

or (for a marginal case) problematises that relationship. There is no space to discuss the

issue here, but charitable giving has a difficulty on this score, and I would argue it has to be

anonymous (but see Tonkin, 2009).

So reciprocity in the gift relationship is noteconomic exchange but is about confirming

affective identities. Here I am in agreement with the distinction made by the anthropologist

Gregory (1982, p 19) between gifts and commodities:

... [C]ommodity exchange establishes a relationship between the objects exchanged,whereas gift exchange establishes a relationship between the subjects. In other words

commodity exchange is a price-forming process, a system of purchase and sale. Gift

exchange is not.


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(On gift versus commodity see also Frow, 1977, and Osteen, 2002.)

There is an aesthetics or skilfulness in giving - both judging an appropriate gift and staging

the occasion.

The implications of the phenomenology of the gift relationship are far-reaching. Many events ofsocial experience have gifting features. For example any encounter in which gratitude may be

evoked; any encounter in which a power-asymmetry has been graciously ignored by the morepowerful participant; any encounter in which a normal economic exchange has been complicatedby gifts of the bakers dozen kind.

One consideration in the psychological use of economic models is that they should be restricted tocertain areas of behaviour. Market economics can be appropriate to what Harr defined as the

practical aspects of social activity, that is, social activity that are directed to material and biologicalends (Harr, 1979, p 19). But the gift relationship is part of the expressive realm, which includes

the presentation of self as of such-and-such a description and worthy of respect. It seems that

Adam Smith (2002 / 1759; see Min, 2002) was already aware of the distinction between thepractical and the expressive when, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments he noted that to dutifully

respond to a gift by ensuring that, in due course, one reciprocates -as if one were repaying a

monetary debt - is quite inappropriate. It does not indicate properpersonalgratitude. The logic ofthe gift operates in the expressive realm.


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