What is a Gifting Dyad?
This article was written by Tao Tao Holmes ’25 and originally published on her thesis blog.
My thesis investigates the adult-child gifting dyad. To which you might ask: What’s a gifting dyad?
A dyad is something that consists of two elements or parts, stemming from the ancient Greek duás, denoting a group of two. Ergo, a gifting dyad is two individuals involved in a gift exchange.
You’ll observe that modern American gifting is almost entirely dyadic, with objects and experiences being proffered 1-on-1 between spouses, friends, family members, classmates, and coworkers, either in a unidirectional or reciprocal manner. For example, a student might give a gift to a teacher, with no expectation of a gift in return (other than an A, maybe). And a parent or grandparent might give a gift to their child or grandchild while receiving no gifts back, at least in the immediate. (Expecting elder care from children once they’re grown might be its own category of delayed or asynchronous reciprocal gifting.)
Which is all to say, the adult-child gifting dyad exists independently of most contemporary “rules” and research about gift-giving, making it uniquely intriguing.
“Ultimately, I’m asking these questions because I want to better understand the wants and needs of adults choosing gifts for kids, especially ones who aren’t their kid.”
But wait — how much of adult-child gifting is actually dyadic? I sketched out a few diagrams to explore the question.
Here we have the adult-child gift relationship as a simple, unidirectional dyad.
But what if Uncle Eric is giving a gift to his niece, Millie? Eric’s sister Sue and her partner Jan are part of this exchange.
But what’s the order, here? Is the gift to Millie through her parents? Or is the gift to the parents, through Millie? Or to both, equally? And does Eric expect reciprocity from Millie, via her parents? Or a gesture of reciprocity from Sue and Jan?
If you’re looking for answers, you won’t find them in the current research.
As mentioned, most gift-giving research addresses adult gifting dyads, and the trends, miscalibrations, and assumptions embedded within these exchanges. For example, researcher Morgan Ward has written about how close friends prioritize relational signaling over recipient preferences in their gift choices, and how giving gifts that don’t match your personal values can pose a threat to your sense of identity.
A sample of current gifting literature.
Meanwhile, the prolific gift research duo, Julian Givi and Jeff Galak, have published papers on when and why givers and recipients don’t see eye-to-eye (source), givers’ and recipients’ mismatched preferences on restricting cash gifts (source), the influence of envy on gift-giving behavior (source), and a framework for understanding errors in gift giving (source). How many of these findings and ramifications apply to adult-child gifting?
“If you’re looking for answers, you won’t find them in the current research.”
Givi and Galak use the term “gifting asymmetry” to capture the gap in perspective between a giver and recipient on what makes a gift “valuable.” Givers tend to prioritize immediate delight, while receivers value long-term utility. Research also shows that recipients generally prefer more versatile gifts (aka cash). But how much does a six year old care about the long-term utility of a toy, and how many six year olds want money for their birthday?
Written responses from my thesis participatory workshop on what makes a meaningful gift for a kid.
Ultimately, I’m asking these questions because I want to better understand the wants and needs of adults choosing gifts for kids, especially ones who aren’t their kid. While my thesis participatory workshop yielded various valuable learnings, the psychology here is multilayered and multifaceted. Is a gift to a kid simply signaling to the parent(s), or is it really about the kid? If both, how would the percentages break down? And if it’s about the kid, how often does a gift accomplish its goal? Does it even have a clear goal? Does it need to? What should the goal be?
There’s so much within this gifting space that’s unknown and unstudied — in fact, I interviewed an academic who wrote a 27-page paper on relational gifting, declaring that the field is desperately in need of more scholarship.
Read more about Tao Tao’s thesis here.
