How to send a gift to make others happy?

When it comes to holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, sending gifts becomes a tough issue for many people. How can one choose a gift that others really love? A joint research between the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Toronto in Canada at Scarborough shows that when presenting the gift , if you say you love the gift, and you also buy a gift for yourself, the reciever will tend to like the gift more.

The study was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in an American Journal. The researchers looked into hundreds of people , letting them to grade different gifts. Afterwards, the researchers attached a note in the gift, saying "I hope you like it."or "I bought myself a card like that, and let them to score  the gift again. The results show that when the giver says he has bought the same gift, the recipient will prefer the gift. Especially when gifts are purchased at the same time, the favors of recipient's on the gift rise to the highest point.

The researchers call this phenomenon the " coupling effect "(伴随效应). When the sender said he has bought the same gift, there forms a special bond between the sender and the recipient, making the gift become special . Besides, it would make the recipient feel the best regard from the  sender. The researchers say that the "coupling effect" is effective not only for family and friends, but also for colleagues or friends that you are less familiar with.

方法：怎样送礼物对方最喜欢

每当到了节日、生日、纪念日这些特殊的日子，送礼成了很多人头疼的一件事情。怎么才能选出一份让对方真正喜欢礼物呢？美国威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校和加拿大多伦多大学斯卡伯勒分校一项联合研究显示，在送礼的时候，如果你和对方说，你也很喜欢这份礼物，并且自己也买了一份，对方就会对这份礼物的好感度有所增加。

这项研究发表在美国《个性与社会心理学通讯》（Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin）上。研究人员调查了数百人，让这些人先给不同的礼物打分，然后再给这些礼物附上“我希望你能喜欢这份礼物。我给自己也买了一份”之类话语的卡片，再让这些人打分。结果表明，当送礼的人表示自己也买了相同的礼物时，收到礼物的人会更喜欢那份礼物。尤其是当礼物是同时购买的时候，收礼物的人对礼物的好感度会上升到最高点。

研究人员把这种现象叫做“伴随效应”。当送礼的人说了自己也买了同样的礼物时，会在“送礼者和收礼者之间结成特殊的纽带，让一份礼物变得特别”，会让收到礼物的人感受到对方送礼背后的心意。研究人员说，“伴随效应”不仅对家人和朋友有效，对不太熟的同事或朋友也能起作用。