How Sunday, price, and social norms influence donation behaviour

Richard Martin and John Randal ()

The Journal of Socio-Economics, 2009, vol. 38, issue 5, pages 722-727

Abstract: We describe a natural field experiment investigating donation behaviour. The setting was an art gallery where donations could be deposited into a transparent box in the foyer. Two aspects of the donation environment were manipulated: signs on the donation box and the initial contents of the box. We used three sign treatments: a control with no sign, a sign that thanked donors, and a sign that indicated donations would be matched. We used two initial contents treatments: one with relatively little money ($50) and one with four times as much. The average donation per donor was significantly larger in the $200 treatments but this was offset by a decrease in the propensity to donate. In the matching treatments donations were significantly larger both at the per donor and per visitor level. A control variable turned out to have the largest influence on donation behaviour: the day of the week. The average donation per visitor was 51% higher on Sundays, when compared to every other day of the week.

Keywords: Natural; field; experiment; Donation; Charity; Price; Social; norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:38:y:2009:i:5:p:722-727

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