I would think a stronger indictment of the external validity of the study is not the sample (I have no reason to believe people slightly older/younger are mater

I would think a stronger indictment of the external validity of the study is not the sample (I have no reason to believe people slightly older/younger are materially different than college students, and to the extent that wealth is a confounder I would expect the direction of confounding to attenuate the study as presented), but rather the design: the way people perceive "prizes" won from participating in a study is materially different than the way they appreciate gifts given to them by people they know and have a bond with. There's also an internal validity argument to be made that the effect size is trivial in substantive terms. 7.06 versus 7.82 on a 9 point scale of satisfaction for a mug? Who gives a shit? I would interpret both 7.06 and 7.82 as "I like this gift, it is a good gift". And also, who cares about getting a mug? If a mug is anchored at a 7-7.8 for me, then every gift I actually get from loved ones is going to be about a 500 out of 9. Study 3 is meant to deal with the social-emotional element of giving a gift, but that's the only study where people don't actually get a gift. They use MTurkers and ask them to imagine. I would completely ignore this part of the study. The more interesting takeaway here is the 1.5 point spread in anticipation between neat and sloppily wrapped gifts in Study 2. That's a way bigger effect than I'd think.