Presentation of a token of appreciation to elderly respondents was used as an opportunity to test some hypotheses in regard to the dynamics of giving and receiving. Specific gift-situation reactions which seemed relevant to ego strength, dependency and retentiveness were used to predict scores on more traditional measures of these personality-behavior traits. Two populations of elderly men and women were studied. All were residents of public housing facilities. Correlations of gift-behavior ratings with criterion data collected nine months later confirm that the style in which a gift is received discloses basic personality functions. The findings suggest that the growing necessity to pay or otherwise reciprocate for data may provide opportunity for additional hypothesis testing.
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