eakelton
offering
Biologists tell us that the capacity for altruism evolved in human beings as a reciprocal act—”I give you something because I trust that you will return the favor, in time”—or as a strategy to benefit the group—”I give you something because the community as a whole will be better off if I do.”
Psychologists tell us that we give each other gifts in order to send messages: “I value the worth of this relationship at….” “I am the kind of person who…” “I want you to be the kind of person who…” “I expect you to…”
Economists tell us that the vast majority of gifts exchanged between loved ones are valued at significantly less by recipients than their original cost to givers, because it is difficult for givers to accurately predict how much the objects they present will be worth in the context of recipients’ lives, tastes, wants, desires, and secret hopes. Most gift-giving actually creates losses, the dismal scientists caution. Don’t do it at all— or if you must, offer cash.
Most likely they would all have something very interesting to say about a person who gives away a thousand paper cranes to strangers, and about the thousand strangers who receive them, only to hold their cranes up and offer them back to the world. But I think they’d all be at least a little bit wrong—don’t you?
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