Warm glow of giving collectively – An experimental study

Ivo Bischoff () and Thomas Krauskopf

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2015, vol. 51, issue C, 210-218

Abstract: We report on an experiment to test for a warm glow of giving collectively. Comparing subjects’ affective state before and after the experiment, we find that individual charitable donations create a feeling of warm glow while collective donations do not. Proposing to donate the full endowment collectively improves subjects’ affective state significantly, though the behavioral data suggests that this result cannot be explained by the notion of expressive voting. We also find that subjects who consider Kant’s Categorical Imperative to be an important guideline for individual decisions are more likely to donate the full endowment to charity. This result supports the notion of Kantian thinking as an independent factor explaining cooperative behavior (Roemer, 2014).

Keywords: Warm glow of giving; Collective decision; Charity; Economic experiment; Immanuel Kant; Affect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:51:y:2015:i:c:p:210-218

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2015.09.001

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