Gift-Giving for Lovers

　　Don't have the perfect gift for your sweetheart this holiday season? Don't sweat it . . . unless your partner is a man. Apparently, men are more sensitive than women when receiving gifts.

　　A team of psychologists published the findings this fall in the journal Social Cognition. They surveyed 32 heterosexual couples on their gift preferences. Then the researchers picked either someone's least favorite choice or the perfect present, but made it seem like it was coming from that person's partner instead.
　　Predictably, men who got bad gifts reacted more negatively than men who got good ones. No surprise there.

　　But, oddly enough, women showed the opposite trend. Women who got an undesired gift were actually more accepting of it than if they’d received their ideal item.

　　They launched into a rational defense of their boyfriends. Women saw themselves as more similar to their partners, which the authors use as a measure of relationship satisfaction. And women viewed their relationship as having just as much long-term potential.

　　But be careful. This study doesn't mean that you should go around buying your lady holiday-themed sweaters and fruitcake. The long-term effects of bad presents are still unknown.

　　給心上人送禮

　　還沒有準備好給心上人送的完美節日禮物嗎？不要慌，除非你的“甜心”是位男士。很明顯在接受禮物的時候，男士比女士更敏感。

　　一個心理學家研究小組在今年秋季的《社會認知》（Social Cognition）雜誌上發表了這項研究結果。他們調查了32對異性情侶對禮物的喜好情況。然後，研究者們選出這些人的最不喜歡或者最喜歡的禮物給他們，但是讓他們感覺這些禮物是來自他們的伴侶。

　　可以預料得到，得到糟糕禮物的男人比得到好禮物的男人表現得更失望。這沒有什麼奇怪的。

　　但是，非常奇怪的是，女士則表現出相反的情形。與女士得到她們理想的禮物相比，當女士得到一個她們並不想要的禮物的時候，她們表現出的態度往往更寬容。

　　女士們會對他們的男朋友進行辯護。女士們認為自己和他們的伴侶更相似，該研究的作者們用這個作為關係融洽的一個衡量標準。同時女士們認為她們和男友之間的關係是具有長期潛力的。

　　不過還是要小心。這項研究並不表示，你可以隨便給你的紅顏知己買些節日裏吃的糖果和水果蛋糕。糟糕禮物的長期影響目前還不得而知。