Valentine’s Day is like an annual festival to celebrate love and admiration. Every year on 14 February people celebrate this day by sending messages of love and affection to partners.
However, some behaviors tend to align with and reinforce people’s gender identity—and that includes Valentine’s Day gift-giving behavior, suggests Constance Porter, a marketing and customer relationships expert at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.
In a survey, she found that men tend to spend more than women and are more willing to rack up credit card debt for Valentine’s Day gifts. This helps them reinforce their sense of male identity and express this identity with others.
Porter said, “It is well known that men have assumed the societal role of taking on more of the gift-giving burden on Valentine’s Day.”
“The people they’re trying to impress include not only the gift recipient but also anyone who hears the story about what they gave their special person on Valentine’s Day.”
“The gift-giver becomes the hero in all of those stories, and that makes him feel great about himself and look good to everyone in his orbit. In this way, the storytelling on the day after Valentine’s Day becomes just as important and ritualistic as the actual day.”
“Men are also more likely than women tend to seek help from salespeople when shopping for a gift. So, if that happens with the Valentine’s Day gift, that could explain why men spend more. The salesperson could exert influence on men to show their love in a manly way by spending a lot on the gift.”
