Most Americans Like To Give Gifts

Despite the stress and the expense of shopping at this time of year, Americans overwhelmingly like the idea of giving gifts.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 82% of Adults consider gift giving something they like to do. Just eight percent (8%) regard it more as an obligation. Ten percent (10%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Sixty percent (60%) of employed Americans, in fact, give gifts to someone they work with. Thirty-seven percent (37%) do not.

While gift giving is viewed as a positive, American adults are evenly divided over whether the holiday season overall is joyful or stressful.

Also, amidst all the giving at this time of year, everyone inevitably gets a few gifts that they really don’t want or need. This has given rise to the practice of regifting, giving someone a gift that was previously given to you.

Thirty-six percent (36%) of Adults say they have regifted, while 59% say they never have.

Fourteen percent (14%) say they even have received a regifted item that they had previously given to someone. Seventy-eight percent (78%) have been spared that embarrassment.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on December 14-15, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.