Giving
Too Far to Help: The Effect of Perceived Distance on the Expected Impact and Likelihood of Charitable Action
Maferima Touré-Tillery & Ayelet Fishbach
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Fact: Holding force constant, a snowball thrown from 10 feet away will hurt more than one thrown from 50 feet away; it will have more impact. We show that people expect charitable donations — much like snowballs — to have more impact on nearby (vs. faraway) targets. Therefore, because making an impact is a powerful motivator of prosocial behavior, people are more willing to take action to help nearby (vs. faraway) causes — independent of social distance. Six studies, including lab and field experiments, and secondary data from fundraising campaigns support this prediction. Specifically, Study 1 shows that people expect charitable donations to have a greater impact on nearby (vs. faraway) recipients, and that these judgments stem from metaphorical thinking. In the context of alumni giving to their alma mater, the next two studies show that donations increase as real (Study 2) or perceived (Study 3) distances decrease. Study 4 extends these findings using a more conservative manipulation of distance perception (Study 4). Finally, Study 5 demonstrates the mediating role of expected impact on the effect of perceived distance on charitable action, whereas Study 6 shows that a motivational focus on making an impact moderates this effect.
Inequality and Charity
Giuseppe Mastromatteo & Francesco Flaviano Russo
World Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
We study empirically the relationship between inequality and active charity participation. Increased inequality can trigger feelings of empathy and compassion, thereby increasing altruism, and it can enhance the worm-glow feeling associated with giving. However inequality can also increase social distance and, therefore, social segregation, decreasing the participation to charities because of a weaker identification with the needy. Our empirical analysis features individual data on charity participation from the World Values Survey, merged with country-level information on inequality from the World Bank Development Indicators. We find that income inequality is positively associated with the probability to actively participate in charitable organizations, even after controlling for economic, sociological, demographics, cultural, and religious factors. We also find that women, religious people, and more educated individuals have a higher probability to actively participate in charities. Since charitable organizations mostly perform redistributive tasks, we also checked whether the generosity of the welfare state crowds out the participation in them, but we found no evidence of this relationship.
Kindness in the Blood: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Gene Regulatory Impact of Prosocial Behavior
Katherine Nelson-Coffey et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Design, setting, participants: In the current study, we examined changes in a leukocyte gene expression profile known as the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA) in 159 adults who were randomly assigned for 4 weeks to engage in prosocial behavior directed towards specific others, prosocial behavior directed towards the world in general, self-focused kindness, or a neutral control task.
Results: Those randomized to prosocial behavior towards specific others demonstrated improvements (i.e., reductions) in leukocyte expression of CTRA indicator genes. No significant changes in CTRA gene expression were observed in the other 3 conditions.
A helping hand is hard at work: Help-seekers’ underestimation of helpers’ effort
Daniel Newark, Vanessa Bohns & Francis Flynn
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, March 2017, Pages 18–29
Abstract:
Whether people seek help depends on their estimations of both the likelihood and the value of getting it. Although past research has carefully examined how accurately help-seekers predict whether their help requests will be granted, it has failed to examine how accurately help-seekers predict the value of that help, should they receive it. In this paper, we focus on how accurately help-seekers predict a key determinant of help value, namely, helper effort. In four studies, we find that (a) helpers put more effort into helping than help-seekers expect (Studies 1–4); (b) people do not underestimate the effort others will expend in general, but rather only the effort others will expend helping them (Study 2); and (c) this underestimation of help effort stems from help-seekers’ failure to appreciate the discomfort — in particular, the guilt — that helpers would experience if they did not do enough to help (Studies 3 & 4).