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The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask

Christine L. Exley (clexley@hbs.edu) and Ragan Petrie
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Christine L. Exley: Harvard Business School, Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit

No 16-101, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use subjectivity to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper, we examine whether a reluctance to give may arise even when such explicit flexibility is absent. We investigate whether merely alerting individuals to an upcoming prosocial ask ? that is neither avoided nor contains subjective components ? results in reduced prosocial behavior. That is, we investigate whether individuals use time to quickly find or develop their own flexibility and excuses not to give. Results from a field study and complementary online study provide a clear answer: yes.

Keywords: charitable giving; prosocial behavior; self-serving biases; excuses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2016-03, Revised 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=16-101.pdf (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: The impact of a surprise donation ask (2018) Downloads
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-101

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