Study: Too much information dilutes your message

Sometimes, more really is less.

A study released last month revealed that gift givers tended to believe that giving more would be perceived by the receiver more positively than receiving less. Giving a cashmere sweater plus a $10 gift card, for example, would be viewed by the recipient as being better than receiving the sweater by itself. Not so fast, researchers say.

“The gift recipient is likely to perceive the cashmere sweater alone as more generous than the combination of the same sweater and the gift card,” they say. This happens because recipients tend to follow “an averaging strategy.” Adding a small gift to a big one, in other words, tend to cheapen the whole bundle.

Interestingly enough, the same behavior applies to speeches and presentations. People who present a lot of proof points to back up their key messages often assume that adding every bit of evidence to the presentation will bolster their case. Research suggests otherwise.