SAT OG 2016 Reading - Test 1 reading 2

Questions 11-21 are based on the following
passage.


This passage is adapted from Francis J. Flynn and Gabrielle S. Adams, "Money Can't Buy Love: Asymmetric Beliefs about Gift Price and Feelings of Appreciation." ©2008 by Elsevier Inc.




Every day, millions of shoppers hit the stores in

full force—both online and on foot—searching

frantically for the perfect gift. Last year, Americans
spent over $30 billion at retail stores in the month of
5 December alone. Aside from purchasing holiday

gifts, most people regularly buy presents for other

occasions throughout the year, including weddings,

birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and baby

showers. This frequent experience of gift-giving can
10 engender ambivalent feelings in gift-givers. Many

relish the opportunity to buy presents because

gift-giving offers a powerful means to build stronger

bonds with one’s closest peers. At the same time,

many dread the thought of buying gifts; they worry
15 that their purchases will disappoint rather than

delight the intended recipients.
Anthropologists describe gift-giving as a positive

social process, serving various political, religious, and

psychological functions. Economists, however, offer
20 a less favorable view. According to Waldfogel (1993),

gift-giving represents an objective waste of resources.

People buy gifts that recipients would not choose to

buy on their own, or at least not spend as much

money to purchase (a phenomenon referred to as
25 ‘‘the deadweight loss of Christmas”). To wit, givers

are likely to spend $100 to purchase a gift that

receivers would spend only $80 to buy themselves.

This ‘‘deadweight loss” suggests that gift-givers are

not very good at predicting what gifts others will
30 appreciate. That in itself is not surprising to social

psychologists. Research has found that people often

struggle to take account of others’ perspectives—

their insights are subject to egocentrism, social

projection, and multiple attribution errors.
35 What is surprising is that gift-givers have

considerable experience acting as both gift-givers and

gift-recipients, but nevertheless tend to overspend

each time they set out to purchase a meaningful gift.

In the present research, we propose a unique
40 psychological explanation for this overspending

problem—i.e., that gift-givers equate how much they

spend with how much recipients will appreciate the

gift (the more expensive the gift, the stronger a

gift-recipient’s feelings of appreciation). Although a
45 link between gift price and feelings of appreciation

might seem intuitive to gift-givers, such an

assumption may be unfounded. Indeed, we propose

that gift-recipients will be less inclined to base their

feelings of appreciation on the magnitude of a gift
50 than givers assume.
Why do gift-givers assume that gift price is closely

linked to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation?

Perhaps givers believe that bigger (i.e., more

expensive) gifts convey stronger signals of
55 thoughtfulness and consideration.According to

Camerer (1988) and others, gift-giving represents a

symbolic ritual, whereby gift-givers attempt to signal

their positive attitudes toward the intended recipient

and their willingness to invest resources in a future
60 relationship. In this sense, gift-givers may be

motivated to spend more money on a gift in order to

send a “stronger signal” to their intended recipient.

As for gift-recipients, they may not construe smaller

and larger gifts as representing smaller and larger
65 signals of thoughtfulness and consideration.
The notion of gift-givers and gift-recipients being

unable to account for the other party’s perspectives

seems puzzling because people slip in and out of

these roles every day, and, in some cases, multiple
70 times in the course of the same day. Yet, despite the

extensive experience that people have as both givers

and receivers, they often struggle to transfer

information gained from one role (e.g., as a giver)

and apply it in another, complementary role (e.g., as
75 a receiver). In theoretical terms, people fail to utilize

information about their own preferences and

experiences in order to produce more efficient

outcomes in their exchange relations. In practical

terms, people spend hundreds of dollars each year on
80 gifts, but somehow never learn to calibrate their gift

expenditures according to personal insight.
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Question 11 The authors most likely use the examples in lines 1–9 of the passage (“Every...showers”) to highlight the