Active Decisions and Pro-social Behavior: A Field Experiment on Blood Donation

Alois Stutzer, Lorenz Götte () and Michael Zehnder ()
Additional contact information
Lorenz Götte: National University of Singapore
Michael Zehnder: University of Zurich
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Lorenz Goette

No 2064, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a decision framework where people are individually asked to either actively consent or dissent to some pro-social behavior. We hypothesize that confronting individuals with the choice of engaging in a specific pro-social behavior contributes to the formation of issue-specific altruistic preferences while simultaneously involving a commitment. The hypothesis is tested in a large-scale field experiment on blood donation. We find that this "active-decision" intervention substantially increases the stated willingness to donate blood, as well as the actual donation behavior of people who have not fully formed preferences beforehand.

Keywords: field experiment; pro-social behavior; active decision; blood donation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2006-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2011, 121 (556), 476-493

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https://docs.iza.org/dp2064.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Active Decisions and Prosocial Behaviour: a Field Experiment on Blood Donation (2011)
Working Paper: Active decisions and pro-social behavior: a field experiment on blood donation (2006)
Working Paper: Active decisions and pro-social behavior: A field experiment on blood donation (2006)
Working Paper: Active Decisions and Pro-social Behavior: A Field Experiment on Blood Donation (2006)
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