Materialists and altruists in a charitable donation experiment

David Fielding, Stephen Knowles () and Kirsten Robertson

Oxford Economic Papers, 2020, vol. 72, issue 1, 216-234

Abstract: This paper presents results from a laboratory experiment that draws on insights from economics on different incentives for generosity and insights from social psychology on different personality types. Firstly, we test whether the effect of an appeal to pure altruism versus an appeal to self-interest varies across subjects. We find that there is substantial variation, and this variation is strongly correlated with a subject’s level of materialism. Secondly, we test whether spoken appeals and written appeals have different effects. We find no evidence for such a difference. These results have important implications for charities’ fundraising strategies and for experimental design.

JEL-codes: C91 D64 M31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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