Gift giving: joy, duty and frustration -- Gift and counter-gift: the reciprocity rule -- The valuation of the gift: the recipient decides, not the giver -- The financial value of the gift: can't buy me love?- The emotional value of the gift: empathy, surprise, sacrifice -- Gifts as information media: what they say about the giver and the relationship with the recipient -- Gifts in romantic relationships: what enhances and what weakens the relationship?- Gifts to different recipients: who gets anything at all and how much?- Difficult givers and recipients: risk reduction strategies -- Cash gifts and vouchers: when are they taboo and when are they welcome?- Handling over and receiving the gift: the moment of truth -- Gifts and gender: Santa Claus is a woman -- Gifts and culture: what applies globally and what regionally?.

Gift-giving is an economically significant area of consumer behavior. For we are constantly buy gifts: for Christmas and Mother's Day, for birth and baptism, for the start of school and exams, for engagements and weddings, for birthdays or as souvenirs. Moreover, gift-giving is a very important psychological phenomenon, based on voluntariness, but also representing a duty and requiring compliance with rules. Thus, gift giving is by no means always associated with joy, but also with stress in the search for a perfect gift and disappointment when gifts fail. The book presents central results of psychological research on gift-giving. These provide answers to the following questions, among others: What 'secret' rules of giving and receiving do we follow? What messages do we send with our gifts? How do certain characteristics - such as the amount of the price or empathy - influence satisfaction with a gift? What mistakes should we avoid when giving gifts in romantic relationships? When is a monetary gift appropriate and when is it not? The Author Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. em. Bernd Stauss held the Chair of Service Management at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. .