They're nice
The Interrelations Between Social Class, Personal Relative Deprivation, and Prosociality
Mitchell Callan et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We propose that personal relative deprivation (PRD) — the belief that one is worse off than similar others — plays a key role in the link between social class and prosociality. Across multiple samples and measures (total N = 2,233), people higher in PRD were less inclined to help others. When considered in isolation, neither objective nor subjective socioeconomic status (SES) was meaningfully associated with prosociality. However, because people who believe themselves to be at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy are typically low in PRD, these variables act as mutual suppressors — the predictive validity of both is enhanced when they are considered simultaneously, revealing that both higher subjective SES and higher PRD are associated with lower prosociality. These results cast new light on the complex connections between relative social status and people’s willingness to act for the benefit of others.
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Catherine Eckel, David Herberich & Jonathan Meer
NBER Working Paper, November 2016
Abstract:
One of the most important outstanding questions in fundraising is whether donor premiums, or gifts to prospective donors, are effective in increasing donations. Donors may be motivated by reciprocity, making premium recipients more likely to donate and give larger donations. Or donors may dislike premiums, preferring instead to maximize the value of their donations to the charity; in this case donor premiums would be ineffective. We conduct a field experiment in conjunction with the fundraising campaign of a major university to examine these questions. Treatments include a control, an unconditional premium with two gift quality levels, and a set of conditional premium treatments. The conditional treatments include opt-out and opt-in conditions to test whether donors prefer to forego premiums. Compared with the control, donors are twice as likely to give when they receive an unconditional, high-quality gift. The low-quality unconditional and all conditional premiums have little impact on the likelihood or level of giving. Donors do not respond negatively to premiums: rates of giving do not suffer when premiums are offered. In addition, few opt out given the opportunity to do so, indicating that they like gifts, and suggesting that reciprocity rather than altruism determines the impact of premiums on giving.
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Moral traps: When self-serving attributions backfire in prosocial behavior
Stephanie Lin, Julian Zlatev & Dale Miller Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two assumptions guide the current research. First, people's desire to see themselves as moral disposes them to make attributions that enhance or protect their moral self-image: When approached with a prosocial request, people are inclined to attribute their own noncompliance to external factors, while attributing their own compliance to internal factors. Second, these attributions can backfire when put to a material test. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that people who attribute their refusal of a prosocial request to an external factor (e.g., having an appointment), but then have that excuse removed, are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior than those who were never given an excuse to begin with. Study 3 shows that people view it as more morally reprehensible to no longer honor the acceptance of a prosocial request if an accompanying external incentive is removed than to refuse a request unaccompanied by an external incentive. Study 4 extends this finding and suggests that people who attribute the decision to behave prosocially to an internal factor despite the presence of an external incentive are more likely to continue to behave prosocially once the external incentive is removed than are those for whom no external incentive was ever offered. This research contributes to an understanding of the dynamics underlying the perpetuation of moral self-regard and suggests interventions to increase prosocial behavior.
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Warm-Glow Giving: Earned Money and the Option to Take
Andrew Luccasen & Philip Grossman
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Giving in dictator games has been shown to vary with the nature of the endowment (earned vs. house money) and the action space (give only vs. the option to give or take). This article is the first to test if these factors similarly affect warm-glow giving alone. There is no reason that one would expect the same outcomes given that the motivations for warm-glow giving are different from the motivations for total (warm-glow plus purely altruistic) giving. We find that warm-glow giving to charity or philanthropic institutions in a real-donation experiment increases when the endowment is earned. The option to take does reduce warm-glow giving to charity, but significant giving remains. Our results suggest that donating earned income creates greater utility than donating an equal amount from a windfall gain, and that warm glow comes not merely from the act of giving, but also from the characteristics of the recipient.
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Nicolas Guéguen et al.
Current Psychology, December 2016, Pages 583–586
Abstract:
We examined the pique technique with a new form of solicitation. Passersby in the street were asked to participate in a short survey. Participants were asked if they had a little time to spare to answer a survey (control) or asked if they had 37 s to participate (pique). Results showed that the pique increased compliance. Participants who accepted were asked the reason for their compliance. It was found that the number of no reason explanations (i.e., “I don’t know”) increased in the pique condition, supporting the assumption that the pique disrupts the script of refusal.