To regift or not to regift: Is it ever OK?

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Sometimes you just don't want it.

By Herb Weisbaum, TODAY contributor

OK, I?ve done it. And quite frankly, I always feel guilty about regifting.

It?s not that I don?t appreciate the present. But sometimes you get something that you really don?t like or can?t use, and there?s no way to take it back to the store. You don?t want to offend the person who gave it to you and you don?t want to throw it away. So you pass it along to someone else who might appreciate it more.

Is this a resourceful way of dealing with an unwanted gift? Or is this rude and distasteful behavior?

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that regifting, ?once a social taboo, is gradually gaining in acceptance.? The Journal points to a nationwide consumer spending survey done by American Express last year. More than half the respondents (58 percent) said it was OK to regift sometimes and 79 percent believed regifting during the holidays is acceptable. Of the 2,000 people questioned, nearly a quarter admitted to regifting at least one present the previous holiday season.

But there?s more. A new paper, ?The Gift We Keep on Giving,? published by Psychological Science,?concludes that regifting is not as offensive to the original givers as regifters assume.

Researchers from Stanford, Harvard and the London Business School conducted five studies that examined both hypothetical scenarios and actual regifting among friends.

They found that gift recipients believed regifting was as bad as throwing the present in the garbage. Gift givers, on the other hand, were significantly more offended by trashing their presents. They?d be much happier if that gift were given to someone else.

What causes this split perception? ?

It appears to be linked to different views about entitlement. The authors concluded: ?Givers believed that the act of gift giving passed title to the gift on to receivers, so that receivers were free to decide what to do with the gift; in contrast, receivers believed that givers retained some say in how their gifts were used.?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/12/28/16193574-to-regift-or-not-to-regift-is-it-ever-ok?lite

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