Self‐gift giving and satisfaction with life: A behavioural tendency perspective

This research considers self‐gift giving as an individual disposition—that is, the extent to which a consumer is inclined to buy herself or himself gifts—and examines some determinants and consequences of this general tendency. A conceptual model was developed where self‐gift giving propensity is hypothesized to follow from gift‐receiving experiences during childhood and lead to long‐term consequences relative to materialism and satisfaction with life (SWL). In addition, gift‐receiving experiences during childhood are also presumed to give rise to a greater level of consumer sociability and, ultimately, a better satisfaction with life. The model was tested using data collected by means of a survey among a sample of 186 adult consumers. The results show that self‐gift giving propensity may have positive or negative effects on consumer SWL, depending on the particular psychological mechanisms that intervene. As a behavioural response to various events in one's life, self‐gifting episodes lead in a cumulative fashion to a better satisfaction with life. However, self‐gift giving propensity also lead to a higher level of materialism and, as a consequence, a degradation of life satisfaction. This study has adopted a life‐span perspective on this particular behaviour and has contributed to identify different psychological processes that explain how self‐gift giving tendencies come about as well as the long‐term consequences that they engender. This study has enriched our knowledge of the self‐gift phenomenon by placing this common consumption behavior in a broader perspective than the motivational, and episodic, approach that has characterized most research in this domain until now.