Avoiding The Ask: A Field Experiment on Altruism, Empathy, and Charitable Giving (original) (raw)
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Altruism, warm glow, and charitable giving: Three experiments
2015
One of the key questions in the science of philanthropy is to what extent donations to charity are motivated by altruism – concern for public benefits, including the well-being of recipients – and warm glow – concerns for private benefits, including emotional gratification. To disentangle altruism and warm glow as motivations for giving we propose a crowding-out field experiment in the Netherlands, for which funding from the Science of Philanthropy Initiative was granted. The field experiment also seeks to test whether empathic concern for recipients and an appeal to the moral principle of care affect the level of crowding-out. This report documents the steps taken towards the execution of the field experiment. In three pilot experiments we developed and tested materials and procedures required for a valid and reliable test. In the first experiment we tested a method commonly used in social psychology to induce empathy, finding no significant effects on a reliable measure of the tem...
Altruistic Behavior in Charitable Giving: A Comparison Between Rational and Emotional
PsyArxiv (preprint)
There is an ongoing debate about whether rational or emotional appeals have a greater influence on moral behavior. The opportunity to donate to a charity provides an applied case to test this influence. Previous studies confirm the power of emotional appeals. For rational appeals, the results are mixed. We present the results of a pre-registered experiment (N=1056) comparing how much participants donate via cash transfers when exposed to five conditions. Three are vignette-based: Narrative presents the testimony of an identified recipient, Argument presents a Singer-style argument for charitable giving, and Facts lists the results of an evaluation of a cash transfer program. The other two conditions are based on perspective-taking exercises with a reasonable donor or a suffering recipient. As predicted, the average amount donated was significantly lower in the control condition than in each of the other five conditions (all ps <.05). Narrative performed best, significantly better than all other conditions except Facts. The success of Facts is surprising given the poor performance of numerical information conditions in other studies. We discuss what features of our design may have contributed to its success, paving the way for a better understanding of how numerical information can influence altruistic behavior.
The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism
Journal of Public Economics, 2011
We would like to thanks Ben Cowan and Megan Ritz for research assistance, Susan Henning, William Harbaugh, Zack Grossman and two anonymous referees for useful comments and the National Science Foundation for funding. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Empathy, 2017
Altruism is the opposite of egoism. In a philosophical context altruism and egoism are regularly discussed as contrasting theories regarding the ultimate motivation of human behavior. Psychological egoism claims that any conduct, even if on the surface it promotes the welfare of others, can ultimately be traced back to the motive of promoting an agent's self-interest. Altruism is hence not a reality, according to psychological egoism. Once the debate is reduced to such a contrast, focusing on ultimate motives of human conduct, important theoretical decisions have been made that then also affect the discussion around the impact of empathy on altruism. Even where psychological egoism is rejected, discussions are aligned along the problem whether a person's motive is to benefit or increase the welfare of another person.
Love to Help: The Roles of Compassion and Empathy in Regards to Altruism
2020
Unresolved global problems, such as extreme poverty, ask for a better understanding of what predicts altruism and what does not. The aim of this thesis project was to address this topical and timely research question by studying the predictive role of compassion and empathy in understanding altruism. In past research on the relationship between altruism and empathy, distinct empathic processes (Perspective taking, Empathic concern, Personal distress, Emotional contagion, and Behavioral contagion) have been often lumped together and the context dependency of the relationship has been insufficiently taken into account, resulting in confusion and contradictory findings. Compassion overcomes these issues. The present web-based survey with previous or current university students (age 18-45; N=240) aimed to clarify relationships between components of empathy, compassion, and altruism. It was hypothesized that (1) compassion would predict altruism beyond all components of empathy; (2) Empathic concern would mediate the relationship between Perspective taking and altruism; (3) compassion would mediate the relationship between Empathic concern and altruism, and (4) higher levels of compassion would result in a reduced negative relationship between Personal distress and altruism. The results supported all hypotheses except for the final one. These findings are discussed in context of previous research and theory, considering the current study limitations and with focus on theoretical and practical implications. In sum, the findings suggest that efforts to motivate altruism should focus on invoking positive emotions of warmth, concern, and relatability. Care should be taken to avoid unnecessary Personal distress when invoking altruism, as this reduces its likelihood
Empathy leads to increased online charitable behaviour when time is the currency
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology , 2017
This study shows how the empathy–altruism hypothesis can affect helping behaviour where time spent is the currency, through the novel use of a real world charity. Using an online charity task (www.freerice.com), we show that inducing empathy and also anger cause participants to spend more time donating rice to the United Nations World Food Programme. These findings therefore support the empathy–altruism hypothesis and add to previous research that have mainly used artificial and/or hypothetical scenarios by further showing that its effects can be applied to real world scenarios where helping behaviours are beneficial.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014
When people are the victims of greed or recipients of generosity, their first impulse is often to pay back that behavior in kind. What happens when people cannot reciprocate, but instead have the chance to be cruel or kind to someone entirely different-to pay it forward? In 5 experiments, participants received greedy, equal, or generous divisions of money or labor from an anonymous person and then divided additional resources with a new anonymous person. While equal treatment was paid forward in kind, greed was paid forward more than generosity. This asymmetry was driven by negative affect, such that a positive affect intervention disrupted the tendency to pay greed forward. Implications for models of generalized reciprocity are discussed.