Essay | Gift-Giving Reminds Us of How to Care for Others

“Why do we do this?” we cry as we trudge through yet another mall, searching desperately for just the right presents for everyone on our list. The tinny carols alone are enough to make you feel, like Scrooge, that “Every idiot with Merry Christmas on his lips” (not to mention Jingle Bells on his sound system) “should be buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” This personal cri de coeur is echoed in the general complaint that presents have made the holidays too commercial, material and consumerist.

So why do we do this? We might find an answer in the cognitive science of care. Human beings devote enormous time, energy and resources to taking care of our children and parents, our partners and friends, the sick and the needy, without expecting a return. It’s a profoundly moral and meaningful part of our lives and an important part of what it means to be human. Yet caregiving has been almost invisible in economics and politics. It doesn’t show up in the GDP, for example.