Dressed to Impress: The Effect of Victim Attire on Helping Behavior

Sergio W. Carvalho, Diogo Hildebrand and Sankar Sen

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2019, vol. 4, issue 4, 376 - 386

Abstract: Charitable organizations often rely on pictures of victims to raise support for their causes. We examine the effect of donor perceptions of a novel aesthetic element of a victim’s physical appearance—his or her attire—on helping. In line with our theorizing, a field study, a survey, and an experiment together show that donor perceptions that a victim is well attired reduces helping by diminishing her perceived need. Moreover, we show that this negative effect of neat attire on helping behavior is weaker for more physically attractive victims than for their less attractive counterparts. These findings establish a victim’s attire as a key driver of donor support, point to attire-based changes in need perceptions as the underlying mechanism, and underscore the interactive role of multiple aesthetic cues in the prosocial domain.

Date: 2019
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