"The thought that counts" is meant to provide cover for whatever gift you give – no matter how inappropriate – an excuse for the fact that because you've actually thought about buying a gift, it's all that matters. As the recipient of a lot of dud gifts, I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. I mostly don't want tea towels or aprons with obscenities on them. I definitely don't want little china ballerinas. And feel free to give me chocolates if you are perfectly happy for me to hand them on to other members of my family who love them! I don't want cute or kitschy. I left tchotchkes behind when I left my childhood home (this is not a criticism of my beloved mother for whom those endless – racks of spoons, shelves of Lladro – signified she could decorate her home anyway she pleased).

I am forensic in my Christmas/Chanukah preparation. I ask lots of straightforward questions of both you and your nearest and dearest - and then look for the best possible match I can afford, so I was shocked to read news on Monday that most Australians say they would be happy to receive a second-hand present for Christmas "but are shy about giving one for fear of looking cheap". If you are thinking about buying me a second-hand present, stop right there. I am pretty confident I don't want it. For all I know, it's inhabited by some angry spirit and I have enough of my own. Or you are giving it away because you got it and don't want it and you have forgotten to remove the tag addressed to you. Don't worry about missing that valuable tag. If I get gifts like that, I am likely to slide it into your hand as you leave.

US research confirms my view about good gift giving. Jeff Galak and friends published fascinating findings in a paper last year entitled Why certain gifts are great to give but not to get: A framework for understanding errors in gift giving. They are with me on the whole "thought that counts" thing. Stop giving people gifts about you. Give people gifts which suit them. I guess it's possible a second-hand gift might possibly make the match with me if those earrings first belonged to Julia deVille.

My favourite message from the researchers? "Since [gift] mismatches generally occur because givers underweight what owning the gift will be like for the recipient, the inaptness of a gift may become more apparent as the moment of exchange becomes more distant."

In other words, when you give someone a gift, think for a minute about what it will be like for the person to whom you are giving the present. Think about what we receivers will actually value over time. Don't go for the "oh wow" moment – or, in the case of the moment I received the apron with the f word all over it, my wtf moment. It was brand new but it was also awful.

Yasmine Musharbash, anthropologist at the University of Sydney and ARC Future Fellow, says you need to be really careful with the second-hand present concept. Her advice is to think about the occasion on one hand and the type of person on the other hand.

"A second-hand gift is perfectly fine unless it is someone's birthday or Christmas," she says.

But even then, there may be some instances where it still works.

"If it was a really cool thing from a really cool op shop, it could be perfectly OK or if it's something perhaps I give to my nieces which belonged my grandmother."

As she points out, though, gifts "cement social relations, you can form or maintain relationships through gift exchanges or you can break social relations if the gift goes wrong."

And while you are considering the purchase of a second-hand gift because of a survey by a company which is all about the second-hand, let me just say this: there is a special place in the aisles of Ikea for people who forget to remove those Christmas tags addressed to the previous recipient. Regifting? Don't do it. You didn't want it. Why would anyone else?

Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney and a Fairfax Media columnist.