A new piece of research by a leading money saving website in the UK, Voucher Codes Pro, has found that hegging – hint begging – is becoming increasingly common in the United Kingdom. This was discovered as part of research into the way British people gave and received gifts. The research also showed that men were far more successful at hegging than women.
Voucher Codes Pro, a leading UK based money saving website, is working on a piece of research to see how people in Britain treat themselves. The research showed that just 33% of people would simply treat themselves if they saw something that they like. Instead, 79% of people would resort to “hegging”, which is hint begging, on order to get what they want.
The research was performed by the team at VoucherCodesPro. They surveyed 2,216 people over the age of 18 in Britain. All were in long term relationships and the ratio between men and women was exactly halved. They were asked to answer a range of different questions that helped VoucherCodesPro determine how people receive gifts. It also looked at whether people behaved differently if they ever wanted gifts.
The first question looked at how comfortable people were with buying something for themselves. Only one third of respondents said that they did that. Instead, 67% felt they were unable to do so, usually because they needed the money for other things instead (41% cited this as a reason) or because they couldn’t afford it (cited by 24% of people).
Next, the survey explained the term hegging and asked whether people would heg their partner or other loved ones in order to receive a gift. 79% of respondents, which therefore includes people who buy for themselves, answered yes to this question.
Looking in greater detail at the practice of hegging, two interesting results were uncovered. Firstly, it was found that there are significant differences between what men heg for and what women heg for. The top 5 for men was:
- 37% – sports tickets
- 32% – DVDs
- 31% – toys such as action figures and water pistols
- 29% – console games
- 24% – clothes and accessories
This contrasts to the top 5 for women, being:
- 44% – clothes and accessories
- 40% – trips and days out
- 30% – shoes
- 25% – home accessories
- 23% – jewellery or makeup
Another difference between the genders was found in the success rates. Just 52% of women were successful in their attempts at hegging, meaning they would often have to resort to different tactics (direct hints, getting it themselves, not getting it at all). Men, however, were successful in 75% of cases.
Voucher Codes Pro’s founder and CEO, Nick Swan, stated that:
“Whilst hint begging is appealing in the sense that you may end up with a lovely gift from your partner or loved one, it could be deemed a bit cheeky to drop so many hints that someone else feels the pressure to buy you something? Surely if you wanted something that bad, and it wasn’t your birthday or Christmas, you’d purchase it for yourself? We all love receiving gifts from those we love, but it means so much more when it comes from the heart and it’s something that they’ve thought to buy for you.
“Having said that, it doesn’t shock us that men are more successful at hegging than women – purely because men are notoriously bad at picking up on hints and prefer for you to just say outright what you mean.”
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
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