Chanelle Nibbelink
What Makes a Gift Feel Special
Being widely generous can backfire on givers.
- By
- October 12, 2026
- CBR - Behavioral Science
In Timon of Athens, a little-known and unfinished Shakespeare play, the titular character is defined by his wealth and generosity. He pays a large dowry for his servant to get married, bails his friend out of debtors’ prison, hosts lavish parties, and gives away valuable possessions including horses and jewels. Yet Timon’s generosity leaves him destitute and deeply in debt. And when he reaches out to the friends he once helped, none are willing to help him in return.
Research by Minkwang Jang of Singapore Management University (a graduate of Booth’s PhD program) and Chicago Booth’s Shereen Chaudhry and Ayelet Fishbach explains why Timon’s friends didn’t reciprocate: Although he gave generously, his gifts didn’t feel special. Had he helped only a few people, his philanthropy might have been more appreciated and might have inspired the recipients to respond to his later appeals for assistance.
The researchers, inspired largely by contemporary observations about generosity, conducted five sets of experiments. In one, participants recruited on a college campus were handed several pieces of chocolate and were asked to give them away to strangers of their choosing. Some of the participants were told to give a single piece of chocolate to one person, while others were instructed to find three separate recipients. Each gift was accompanied by a card signed with the initials of the giver.
Just for me?
Study participants felt more connected to someone who gave gifts to only a few people than to someone who gave gifts to many. They also valued the rare gift more, regardless of whether it came from a friend or an acquaintance.
Research assistants then approached each person who received a chocolate and gave them some information about the giver’s choice—as well as a survey asking them to state, on a scale from 1 to 7, how connected they felt to the giver. Recipients gave higher scores when told that they alone had been singled out for a gift. In other experiments conducted online, the researchers find that this strength of connection has implications for valuation. People tend to both experience stronger personal connection and value a gift more when it comes from a rare giver.
Indeed, recipients valued gifts from rare givers more, even when the gifts themselves were objectively less valuable. For example, in one setup, online participants were asked to choose between two clocks of different values, each from a different person. Some participants were told that the giver of the cheaper clock had chosen them as the sole recipient and that the giver of the more expensive clock had sent gifts to two other people.
These participants were more likely than those in a control group, who received no information about the ultimate number of recipients, to choose the cheaper clock.
The findings have application for, among other things, corporate giving. In one online experiment, participants perceived a company that was narrowly focused in its giving rather than widely generous as caring more about the cause it supported. Jang says the findings suggest that “there is value in being more strategic about how generosity is used.”
Minkwang Jang, Shereen Chaudhry, and Ayelet Fishbach, “The Downside of Generosity: How Rare Giving Fosters Stronger Social Connection,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, May 2026.
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