Ex-post blindness as excuse? The effect of information disclosure on giving

Serhiy Kandul

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2016, vol. 52, issue C, 91-101

Abstract: People passing by beggars without leaving a penny are not necessarily pure money-maximizers. In the world of sincere and dishonest recipients, some donors might anticipate the disutility they will suffer at the moment they realize their help is misdirected and reduce their willingness to donate to avoid these psychological costs. I employ a dictator game with ex-ante uncertainty about recipient’s endowment and requests from recipients to study how donors react to ex-post revelation of recipient’s type. I observe no difference in donations with and without ex-post information about recipient’s endowment. However, if donors could choose if they want to receive such information themselves, nearly a third of dictators choose to remain ignorant. Those dictators who choose to ex-post reveal the endowment of the recipient give significantly more.

Keywords: Prosocial behavior; Self-image; Ignorance; Ex-post disclosure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D03 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:52:y:2016:i:c:p:91-101

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2015.11.006

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