Gift Wrapping Is Overrated

Marketplace:

Novemsky: So we were very interested in this question of how gift wrapping influences peoples reactions to gifts -- how much they like them. And also their willingness to reciprocate to the gift giver. I've had this experience some time ago -- giving my wife gifts -- where I would try to go the extra mile -- get the fancy bow and the nice wrapping -- every time I gave her something. And I'd notice a little ting in her eye when she would open the gift that almost suggested she was a little disappointed sometimes. So that encouraged us to run a few studies to give people gifts and see how they reacted to the same gift -- depending on how it was wrapped. And one of the interesting findings was that if you wrap a gift, you raised peoples expectations and the liking of the same gift goes down. If you wrap a gift that, you know, is really just meant to be a little something, it might behoove you not to wrap it -- or if you are going to wrap it, to not wrap it so nicely.
Moon: Now we're not just talking about the kind of wrapping paper, we're talking about not wrapping a gift at all to keep expectations lower.
Novemsky: That's right. Because you can imagine that -- especially as a gift that's wrapped sits under the Christmas tree for, you know, days or weeks, for example -- you start to imagine what's in there and you get pretty expectations. And when Christmas finally comes or the time comes to finally open that wrapping, you're imagining something great. Where as if I just say, "Here is something for you" and hand you something that you can immediately see, there's no chance for those expectations to creep up.

A case where science indicates that positive outcomes correspond with laziness.  I like that.

The show also featured a bit of News of the Obvious: Ron Paul invests heavily in gold.  Whodathunkit?  Well at least that has paid off well for him the last few years.  If he were wise, he'd probably cash out.  He won't.