The Social Psychology of the Gift

Abstract

In the first section of this essay gift exchange is discussed in terms of its relevance for the development and maintenance of identity. The acceptance of a gift, it is suggested, is in fact an acceptance of the giver's ideas as to what one's desires and needs are. Gift giving as a mode of social control and expression of unfriendliness is considered. The relationship between gift exchange and social structure is analyzed from the standpoint of the "gratitude imperative." The essay is concluded with a treatment of benefit exchange as a technique for the regulation of shared guilt.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 524 citations exist upstream.