Friends of Victims: Personal Experience and Prosocial Behavior

Deborah A. Small and Uri Simonsohn

Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 2008, vol. 35, issue 3, pages 532-542

Abstract: Why do different people give to different causes? We show that the sympathy inherent to a close relationship with a victim extends to other victims suffering from the same misfortunes that have afflicted their friends and loved ones. Both sympathy and donations are greater among those related to a victim, and they are greater among those in a communal relationship as compared to those in an exchange relationship. Experiments that control for information support causality and rule out the alternative explanation that any effect is driven by the information advantage possessed by friends of victims. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2008

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