GIFT IS NEVER A FREE ACT

We always send a message through a gift

Joseph Messinger stresses the importance of the meaning of the gift: it is a way of making friend-friend . When explorers of the last century went to meet unknown tribes, they always brought trinkets to offer to the chief to show their good intentions.

Today, the gift can be a way to clear oneself . If, for example, a person has not been very present with their family during the past year, they will tend to offer a nice gift to those around them. This is his way of being very present at this time of the year.

But the message is not necessarily positive . When one makes a "failed" gift, which does not correspond at all to the expectations and tastes of the person who receives it, it is a form of contempt. They tell him: "You do not interest me".

Different profiles depending on the type of gift

The psychologist Joseph Messinger decrypts different personalities through their way of offering a gift.

-The one who makes a gift expensive, disproportionate ... This can be a form of bovarism: a state of dissatisfaction on the emotional and social levels with vain and excessive ambitions.

He may also be a person obsessed with appearance and what will anyone say.

-The one that offers little or no gifts ... He is clearly a stingy man who hides a certain pettiness. He suffers from the neurosis of lack. He is afraid of not having tomorrow what he has today.

-The one that offers only useful gifts: some people only offer useful objects like a battery of pans or a toolbox ... They want to show that they have the practical spirit, that they are of common sense, effective and not futile for a penny. A gift is never a free act

As psychologist Joseph Messinger explains, when you give a gift to someone, it is fun and fun. It is a way of making others recognize that you are part of a circle of friends.

Already at the beginning of 20th century, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss studied the gift in so-called primitive societies: the Maori of New Zealand and the Kwakiutl, Native American people of Canada.

He demonstrated that the gift was a "voluntary-voluntary-exchange". The gift is a social fact: to give can not be without receiving, in the sense of acceptance, and receiving obliges likewise to give back. Exchange therefore appears as an important link in social life . The refusal to give, or to receive or to return, leads, if not always to war, at least to the rupture of the links between donor and donee. The refusal is itself a break between donor and donee.

This theory is still relevant today. Part of it is because we want it, partly because tradition forces it. And it would not occur to us to refuse the gift of Aunt Micheline even if it is a terrible picture she bought from a friend painter ... The refusal would necessarily be interpreted as an impoliteness or as a mark of hostility, a declaration of war.