Special gifts Treated Extra Special

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According to Author Tonya Williams Bradford (University of Notre Dame) a meaningful story or a special relative is much more valued than the stuff or money. She said assets with "symbolic value serve to nurture family ties from the past into the future." She also put in that gifts with great symbolic values are often handled with utmost care and that certain funds are sorted out as "special money" for its significance within the family. Bradford also said that gifted assets which can easily be appraised and sold are most likely to become symbolic when passed from one generation to another. It is to be noted that they are treated with more fondness than equivalent assets that were not received from a parent or a grandparent. Certain assets are considered surrogate. Families carry forward the heritage thereby imposing hierarchies on the assets.

"Labels are not only ascribed to gifted assets, but are transferred from past to future generations through family caretakers who nurture both the symbolic meaning and market values of the gifted assets," wrote the author.

"These findings expand our understanding of and create new opportunities to examine how individuals employ a special form of possessions inalienable wealth as assets, including how individuals choose to part with assets, a choice necessary for the well-being of all economies," she concluded.

The study is published in the Journal of Consumer Research. AGENCIES