Charity Misconduct on Public Health Issues Impairs Willingness to Offer Help

Lijun Yin, Ruzhen Mao and Zijun Ke
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Lijun Yin: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Ruzhen Mao: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Zijun Ke: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: Charity organizations positively impact our societies but charity misconduct impairs people’s willingness to contribute to charity and functional health systems on public health issues. This study investigates the impact of charity misconduct on people’s willingness to offer help on public health issues and possible ways of reducing the negative impact brought by charity misconduct news through four studies ( N total = 1269). Results showed that charity misconduct on public health issues significantly reduced individuals’ willingness to offer help via both the charity involved with the misconduct and any charity they prefer (Study 1 and 2). Furthermore, news on charity misconduct reduced people’s general willingness to help in contexts that did not involve charity (Study 3). Finally, presenting charity nonmisconduct news after charity misconduct news increases individuals’ willingness to offer help via the nonmisconduct charity (Study 4), suggesting a potential way to nudge people to provide help in the fight against the negative impact brought by charity misconduct news. The findings show the backfire of reporting charity misconduct news and have important implications for potential ways to facilitate people to offer help.

Keywords: charity; misconduct; news; help; public health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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