Imagine opening a birthday gift from a close friend and finding a weight-loss tea or a calendar designed to improve your communication skills. Even if your friend meant well, there is a good chance the gift stings a little. New research suggests that sting does not just stay with you. It may also spill over into how you rate and talk about the product itself.
A series of five experiments published in the Journal of Retailing found that people who receive self-improvement products as gifts tend to leave lower star ratings and spread more negative word of mouth about those products than people who receive non-improvement gifts. The researchers also identified two strategies retailers can use to reduce the damage.
A booming market with a hidden problem
Self-improvement products are big business. The global market for self-improvement goods and services was estimated at nearly $44 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach about $67 billion by 2030. These products include everything from weight-loss supplements and anti-aging creams to self-help books and meditation app subscriptions.
Many retailers actively promote these products as gifts. Peloton encourages customers to “give the gift of Peloton.” Planet Fitness markets gym memberships as Mother’s Day presents. Tea companies bundle slimming teas into holiday gift sets. Medical spas run social media ads suggesting that Botox makes a better Valentine’s Day gift than flowers.
But do people actually receive these kinds of gifts? In a preliminary survey of 97 participants, the researchers found that 67% reported having received a self-improvement gift at some point. The most common examples were self-help books, meditation app subscriptions, and gym memberships or equipment.
The question behind the research
Linnéa M. Chapman, a researcher at Florida International University, and Farnoush Reshadi of Worcester Polytechnic Institute wanted to understand what happens after someone opens a self-improvement gift. Prior research had established that people naturally want to improve themselves and that self-improvement products sell well when people buy them on their own. But when someone else picks out a product that says “you could be better,” the message changes.
The researchers reasoned that self-improvement gifts could hurt recipients’ feelings by implicitly suggesting they are not good enough as they are. Gift giving is a form of social communication, and recipients generally expect presents to be expressions of care or affection. A gift that seems to point out a flaw, even unintentionally, may feel like criticism. And criticism, according to psychology research, is a known trigger for hurt feelings, which are described as a blend of sadness and anger.
Chapman and Reshadi hypothesized that recipients would cope with those hurt feelings through a common emotional outlet: venting. Specifically, they predicted that people would channel their negative emotions into negative word of mouth about the product, such as leaving lower star ratings or saying unflattering things about it to others.
How the experiments worked
Across the five experiments, participants were recruited through the online platform Prolific and were all based in the United States. Sample sizes ranged from about 200 to over 300 participants per study. In each experiment, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a self-improvement product or a non-improvement product as a gift in a hypothetical scenario.
In the first experiment, participants imagined that a friend gave them a birthday gift: either a “Get Lean Tea” (described as helping with weight loss and appearance) or a “Moroccan Tea” (described as a sensory indulgence). Both products were modeled after real teas sold by The Republic of Tea. Participants then rated the product on a one-to-five star scale, indicated whether they would upvote a negative review left by someone else, and reported how likely they were to speak positively about the product.
The results were clear. Those who received the weight-loss tea gave it an average of 3.08 stars, compared to 3.85 for the Moroccan tea. They were also more likely to upvote someone else’s negative review and less likely to say positive things about the tea.
A second experiment used a different product, a calendar, and a different occasion, a “just because” gift with no particular holiday attached. The self-improvement version was titled “Elevate Communication Skills Calendar,” while the control version was a “Did You Know Calendar” with entertaining facts. Participants read through all 12 monthly pages before rating the product. The pattern held: the self-improvement calendar received significantly lower star ratings and more negative spoken word of mouth.
Hurt feelings as the link
A third experiment replicated the calendar scenario but added a new measurement. After viewing the gift, participants reported how hurt, wounded, or crushed they felt on a seven-point scale. Those who received the communication skills calendar reported significantly stronger hurt feelings (an average of 2.39 out of 7) compared to those who received the entertainment calendar (1.26 out of 7).
Statistical analysis showed a chain of events: receiving a self-improvement gift was linked to increased hurt feelings, and those hurt feelings in turn were linked to more negative word of mouth. In other words, the reason recipients gave lower ratings and said negative things about self-improvement gifts appeared to be because the gifts made them feel bad about themselves. Importantly, a separate pre-registered study (included in the paper’s appendix) found that this effect did not appear when people purchased self-improvement products for themselves, only when the products arrived as gifts from someone else.
Two strategies that helped retailers
The final two experiments tested whether retailers could do anything to soften the blow. In the fourth experiment, participants again imagined receiving the Get Lean Tea as a birthday gift. But one group also saw a flyer from the tea maker offering a $10 Visa gift card in exchange for leaving a star rating. Those who were offered the incentive gave the self-improvement tea an average of 3.77 stars, compared to 3.36 from those who received no incentive. The incentivized ratings were statistically comparable to the 3.89 average given by people who received the non-improvement tea with no incentive.
The fifth experiment tested a different, lower-cost approach: humanizing the review request. Instead of a generic flyer asking for a rating, one group saw a personalized message that appeared to come from the business owner, complete with a name and a friendly tone. Recipients of the self-improvement tea who saw the humanized request gave an average rating of 3.66 stars, compared to 3.32 from those who saw the generic request. Again, the humanized group’s ratings were not significantly different from those given by people who received the non-improvement tea (3.84 stars).
What this means for retailers
The findings carry several practical takeaways for businesses that sell self-improvement products. The most direct implication is that online product reviews may suffer when the people writing them received the product as a gift rather than buying it for themselves. Since online ratings are known to influence purchasing decisions and revenue, this is a real business concern.
The researchers suggest a few approaches. Retailers could include financial incentives, such as coupons or gift cards, when soliciting reviews. They could also humanize their review requests by having them come from a named employee or business owner rather than an anonymous prompt. Both approaches were effective at closing the gap between self-improvement and non-improvement product ratings in the experiments.
On a broader strategic level, the researchers suggest that retailers might want to reconsider how aggressively they promote self-improvement products as gifts. Rather than featuring slimming teas in holiday gift sets or running “give the gift of fitness” campaigns around Mother’s Day, retailers might benefit from steering gift shoppers toward non-improvement items. Self-improvement products could instead be promoted during periods when consumers are buying for themselves, such as January, when New Year’s resolutions drive demand.
Important caveats to keep in mind
The study has some notable limitations. All five experiments used hypothetical scenarios rather than actual gift exchanges, which means the results describe how people say they would behave, not necessarily how they would behave in real life. The researchers acknowledge this and suggest that future studies could test the effect using real gifts.
The self-improvement products tested were limited to those related to physical appearance and communication skills. Other types of self-improvement gifts, such as a book on financial planning or a language-learning app, might not trigger the same hurt feelings. The relationship between the giver and receiver likely also matters. A fitness tracker from a personal trainer might feel very different from the same gift coming from a friend.
It is also worth noting that not every recipient will interpret a self-improvement gift as criticism. Some may genuinely appreciate a gift that aligns with goals they have already set for themselves. The study measured averages across groups, and individual reactions will vary.
Still, for any retailer banking on gift sales to drive revenue for self-improvement products, the research offers a useful caution: what looks like a thoughtful present to the buyer might feel like a pointed critique to the person unwrapping it. And that emotion, even if it fades quickly, may live on in the form of a low star rating.
