Generosity, greed, norms, and death – Differential effects of mortality salience on charitable behavior

Eva Jonas, Daniel Sullivan and Jeff Greenberg

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2013, vol. 35, issue C, 47-57

Abstract: Terror management theory (TMT) states that mortality salience prompts people to follow cultural standards. But many cultures value both generosity and accumulation of wealth. Combining TMT with the focus theory of normative conduct, we suggest that whether mortality salience encourages generosity or greed depends on the norm(s) salient in the situation. In Study 1 mortality salience led Americans to give less money to foreign charities. Study 2 replicated this effect, and showed it can be eliminated by activating a generosity norm. However, people who valued money as highly important donated less money following mortality salience. Study 3 showed that following mortality salience and a fairness prime, people behaved more generously when splitting money between themselves and an anonymous partner.

Keywords: Psychology of money; Charitable behavior; Norms and values; Mortality salience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D64 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487012001511
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:35:y:2013:i:c:p:47-57

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.12.005

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

More articles in Journal of Economic Psychology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().