It is for you,or it is for me: How relationship dependence affects gift image consistency in romantic relationships

Recently, consumer behavior research has been focusing on decision‐making in relationships. This research considers an important context, romantic gift giving, in which givers choose gifts that are perceptually consistent with both their own self‐image and the recipients' self‐image. Based on interdependence theory, we investigate how the relationship dependence between romantic couples can affect gift image consistency. According to the results, the giver's level of dependence plays a positive role in the consistency between the recipient's self‐image and the gift image (gift‐recipient consistency) and plays a negative role in the consistency between the giver's self‐image and the gift image (gift‐giver consistency). The mutuality of dependence could strengthen or weaken the effect of the giver's level of dependence on gift image consistency, and this effect is carried through the giver's relationship power.