Why do we give things to others? Why do we pay attention to, help and forgive them? Are gifts a normal part of everyday life or rather an exception to the rule of self- interest? Gift giving is frequently linked to the principle of exchange: person A gives something of value to person B and receives something else that is of similar value. The exchange is beneficial to both since each desires that which the other owns more than what they own themselves. For Adam Smith, the “father of modern economics,” “the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another” is a part of “human nature” and distinguishes us from other animals. After all, “[n] obody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog” (Smith, [1776] 1957: 10).

In exchanges it is usually clear which goods change hands at what time, as persons A and B have agreed on certain conditions. However, there are situations in which material or immaterial goods are given without an exchange taking place: person A gives something to person B but does not expect something in return. Perhaps person B will return the favor at a later point, and perhaps they won’t; it is entirely up to them to decide if and when to reciprocate person A’s gift.

Whereas exchanges, with their overtly self- interested motives, require no further explanation, acts of gift giving do. Scholarship on this issue tends to proceed along one of three paths: first, one can try to show that behind seemingly disinterested acts of giving there are in fact self-interested motives; second, one accepts that people give but assumes that this is merely due to the values and norms they have internalized during socialization; or third, one insists that people are indeed capable of acting altruistically, of making sacrifices. Since the altruism model often cannot be clearly separated from the internalization model, we are left with a simple dichotomy: theories of selfinterest vs. theories that emphasize values, norms, and altruistic acts. Thus, sociological theories of rational choice focus on exchanges between selfinterested individual agents while normative social theory is concerned with powerful supra-individual values and norms which individuals comply with.