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Give the gift of you this season
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Published: December 11, 2008
A friend was telling me of a Christmas gift he received from his neighbor earlier this week, and the internal struggle it has caused.
You see, my friend's work hours have been cut, he can barely afford his bills, and now he feels obligated to buy a gift in return.
He asked me what he should do, so I asked back, "Do you want to give him a gift?"
"No, I can't afford it, but I know I'm supposed to," he answered. "I'll look like a cheapskate if I don't."
My friend had just become a victim of The Law of Reciprocity, where people feel obligated to return a favor or consideration.
Give and Take
In "Artful Persuasion," Harry Mills says "the reciprocation rule states that we should repay in kind what someone has given us." Simply put, it's "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine."
Mills illustrates reciprocity's power on the response to a direct mailing. When the Disabled Americans Veterans mailed out an appeal for donations, the response rate was about 18 percent.
But what happened when they started sending you those free personalized address labels in their solicitations? The number of people who sent money doubled, because of a sense of indebtedness the labels caused.
Christmas cards do that. When you get a card from someone, do you feel obligated to send one back?
Concessions
People who manipulate you often use concessions to do so.
Someone makes a request of you, maybe with a high price or a large time commitment, knowing you will probably say no.
You do just that, so they come back with a smaller request (their concession), and since you rejected their first request, the law of reciprocity obliges you to also make a concession, usually agreeing to their lesser request.
Here's the manipulation in this tactic: They are perfectly happy accepting the lesser amount to which you concede after saying no, and may have even planned this strategy in advance.
Someone asks you to go to dinner. You prefer to go home after work and curl up on the couch. They then propose doing lunch, a much less time-consuming event. Human nature prompts us to say yes to the smaller request.
Kids are masters at this approach. They ask for four things at McDonald's, and we tell them, "No, you can only have three." They knew it all along.
The Final Question
Back to my friend who got the gift. Should he buy a gift for the neighbor? What would you do?
These are exceptional times. Money is tight, bills are high. In such situations, may I suggest that, yes, you give a gift, but not one of stuff that they don't need or want, but rather, give the gift of yourself.
Do something kind, something nice, with no expectation of reward. Better yet, perform an act of kindness for someone who cannot repay you.
The cashier at Bojangles' told me of a couple who didn't have enough money to buy their meal. When they went out to car to look for more money, the man in line behind them stepped up and paid it in full.
Christmas is not a thing, it is a spirit. Count what you have, not what you want.
Slow down, stop the insane rush, and give the best gift of all: you.
Jeff Corbett has done public speaking across the Southeast for many years. He lives in Statesville and can be reached at jeff@speak-well.com.
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