Gifts in a Romantic Relationship: A Survival Analysis

Employing a survival analysis approach, this study synthesizes 3 aspects of gift literature and suggests their effects on the timing of dissolution for a romantic relationship. Products or services can be consumed for the purpose of enhancing self-attractiveness (self-gift), expressing love to partners (other-gift), and announcing a relationship to the outer world (joint-gift). Results indicate that the distribution of time until dissolution for young students' romantic relationships is more likely to first fall and then rise. Gifts can delay the timing of dissolution, but not the probability of its final destination. For female students, self-enhancing gifts are found to delay the timing; for male students, love-expressive gifts speed up the timing; and for both male and female students, relationship-announcing gifts delay the timing of dissolution. Consumers, thus, are advised to use gifts to make their relationships endure, but not to attempt to alter a poor relationship into a successful one.