Accounts of self-gift giving: nature, context and emotions

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contextualized view of participants’ accounts of self-gift consumer behaviour (SGCB) throughout the consumption cycle, from the motivations to the emotions that follow.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses an interpretive approach, focused on participants’ constructions of meanings, using 99 critical incident technique interviews, which followed 16 in-depth interviews.

Findings

This paper identifies the following self-gift motivations: To Reward Myself (and Others); To celebrate; To remember or get closer; To forget or part; To feel loved or cheered up; and To enjoy life. It also uncovers a compensatory/therapeutic dimension in most self-gifts. The authors identify changes in emotional responses to SGCB over time, and suggest a relationship between these emotions and the contexts that drive self-gifts. Self-gifts are conceptualized as pleasure-oriented, symbolic and special consumption experiences, which are self-directed, or both self- and others-directed; perceived by the consumer to be justified by the contexts in which they occur; and driven and followed by context-dependent emotions.

Originality/value

This manuscript offers novel insights into participants’ uses of both SGCB and the act of labelling purchases “self-gifts”. It uncovers how consumers are concerned with accounting for indulgent spending and how this problematizes the concept of “self-gift”. It challenges the idea of a single context for SGCB, showing how interacting motivations explain it. It also introduces a temporal dimension to self-gift theory by considering emotional responses at different times. Finally, it offers a new conceptualization of and theoretical framework for SGCB.

Citation

Heath, T.P., Tynan, C. and Ennew, C. (2015), "Accounts of self-gift giving: nature, context and emotions", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 No. 7/8, pp. 1067-1086. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-03-2014-0153