I swear, I would like to donate later

Jianbiao Li, Ruqian Zang () and Xiaofei Niu ()
Additional contact information
Jianbiao Li: Shandong University
Ruqian Zang: Shandong University
Xiaofei Niu: Shandong University

Experimental Economics, 2024, vol. 27, issue 5, No 7, 1158-1183

Abstract: Abstract Pledges are ubiquitous in charitable giving, but they are often reneged upon. To investigate whether adding the phrase “I swear” to pledge language can reduce pledge reneging, we conduct a series of experiments in the context of online fundraising. We find that including “I swear” at the beginning of the pledge language significantly increases immediate giving and pledge fulfillment, with more individuals switching from pledging to giving immediately. We also observe individual heterogeneity in moral identity: Our findings are present among individuals with low moral identity, but not among those with high moral identity. Our paper presents a simple and no-cost strategy for increasing the effectiveness of pledges in online fundraising.

Keywords: Charitable giving; Pledge; I swear; Online fundraising (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10683-024-09845-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:kap:expeco:v:27:y:2024:i:5:d:10.1007_s10683-024-09845-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/10683/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10683-024-09845-x

Access Statistics for this article

Experimental Economics is currently edited by David J. Cooper, Lata Gangadharan and Charles N. Noussair

More articles in Experimental Economics from Springer, Economic Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().