How nice of you
Give a piece of you: Gifts that reflect givers promote closeness
Lara Aknin & Lauren Human
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2015, Pages 8–16
Abstract:
Gift giving is an ancient, ubiquitous and familiar behavior often thought to build and foster social connections, but what types of gifts are most effective in increasing closeness between the giver and the recipient? In six studies we explore both the perceptions and relational outcomes of gifts that reflect the giver (giver-centric gifts) and gifts that reflect the recipient (recipient-centric gifts). Across studies, we find a strong and consistent preference for giving and receiving recipient-centric gifts. Surprisingly, however, in the gift-giving contexts examined in these studies, both givers and receivers report greater feelings of closeness to their gift partner when the gift reflects the giver.
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A Large Scale Test of the Effect of Social Class on Prosocial Behavior
Martin Korndörfer, Boris Egloff & Stefan Schmukle
PLoS ONE, July 2015
Abstract:
Does being from a higher social class lead a person to engage in more or less prosocial behavior? Psychological research has recently provided support for a negative effect of social class on prosocial behavior. However, research outside the field of psychology has mainly found evidence for positive or u-shaped relations. In the present research, we therefore thoroughly examined the effect of social class on prosocial behavior. Moreover, we analyzed whether this effect was moderated by the kind of observed prosocial behavior, the observed country, and the measure of social class. Across eight studies with large and representative international samples, we predominantly found positive effects of social class on prosociality: Higher class individuals were more likely to make a charitable donation and contribute a higher percentage of their family income to charity (32,090 ≥ N ≥ 3,957; Studies 1–3), were more likely to volunteer (37,136 ≥N ≥ 3,964; Studies 4–6), were more helpful (N = 3,902; Study 7), and were more trusting and trustworthy in an economic game when interacting with a stranger (N = 1,421; Study 8) than lower social class individuals. Although the effects of social class varied somewhat across the kinds of prosocial behavior, countries, and measures of social class, under no condition did we find the negative effect that would have been expected on the basis of previous results reported in the psychological literature. Possible explanations for this divergence and implications are discussed.
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Give me your self: Gifts are liked more when they match the giver's characteristics
Gabriele Paolacci, Laura Straeter & Ilona de Hooge
Journal of Consumer Psychology, July 2015, Pages 487–494
Abstract:
Research on gift giving has devoted considerable attention to understanding whether and how givers succeed in choosing gifts that match recipients' tastes. On the contrary, this article focuses on how recipients' appreciation for a gift depends on the match between the gift and the giver. Four studies demonstrate that recipients are particularly appreciative when they receive gifts that figuratively match the giver, i.e., that contain references to the giver's characteristics, because they perceive such gifts as more congruent with the giver's identity. This effect is not conditional on inferences recipients might make about the giver's motivations or on whether recipients have a good relationship with the giver, but relies on the match concerning core rather than peripheral characteristics of the giver. Importantly for our understanding of identity-based motivation, these findings demonstrate in a gift-giving context that identity-congruence not only drives consumer behavior, but is also appreciated in other people.
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When Gift-Giving Is Selfish: A Motivation to Be Unique
Jeff Galak & Julian Givi
Carnegie Mellon University Working Paper, July 2015
Abstract:
Gift givers are faced with the difficult task of choosing gifts that will be liked by gift recipients, and the challenging nature of this task often leads gift givers to unintentionally give poor gifts. The results of seven lab and field studies across 1,513 participants suggest that this failure on the part of gift givers is not always unintentional. Rather, it seems that gift givers possess a need for uniqueness and that this longing often leads them to knowingly give poor gifts. The present research demonstrates a robust effect in which gift givers, in some contexts, give gift recipients inferior gifts, because gift givers have a selfish motive in that they want their own possessions to feel unique. Conversely, when given the opportunity to choose between gifts for the self, gift recipients ignore this need for uniqueness in favor of obtaining an optimal gift. This effect holds across a variety of gifts, and gift-giving paradigms.
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Beauty, Weight, and Skin Color in Charitable Giving
Christina Jenq, Jessica Pan & Walter Theseira
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines bias in online charitable microfinance lending. We find that charitable lenders on a large peer-to-peer online microfinance website appear to favor more attractive, lighter-skinned, and less obese borrowers. Borrowers who appear more needy, honest and creditworthy also receive funding more quickly. These effects are quantitatively significant: Borrowers with beauty one standard deviation above average are treated as though they are requesting approximately 11% less money. Statistical discrimination does not appear to explain our findings, as these borrower attributes are uncorrelated with loan performance or borrower enterprise performance. The evidence suggests implicit bias could explain our findings: more experienced lenders, who may rely less on implicit attitudes, appear to exhibit less bias than inexperienced lenders.
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Jonas Miller, Sarah Kahle & Paul Hastings
Psychological Science, July 2015, Pages 1038-1045
Abstract:
Altruism, although costly, may promote well-being for people who give. Costly giving by adults has received considerable attention, but less is known about the possible benefits, as well as biological and environmental correlates, of altruism in early childhood. In the current study, we present evidence that children who forgo self-gain to help other people show greater vagal flexibility and higher subsequent vagal tone than children who do not, and children from less wealthy families behave more altruistically than those from wealthier families. These results suggest that (a) altruism should be viewed through a biopsychosocial lens, (b) the influence of privileged contexts on children’s willingness to make personal sacrifices for others emerges early, and (c) altruism and healthy vagal functioning may share reciprocal relations in childhood. When children help others at a cost to themselves, they could be playing an active role in promoting their own well-being as well as the well-being of others.
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Cultivating Disaster Donors Using Data Analytics
Ilya Ryzhov, Bin Han & Jelena Bradić
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Nonprofit organizations use direct-mail marketing to cultivate one-time donors and convert them into recurring contributors. Cultivated donors generate much more revenue than new donors, but also lapse with time, making it important to steadily draw in new cultivations. The direct-mail budget is limited, but better-designed mailings can improve success rates without increasing costs. We propose an empirical model to analyze the effectiveness of several design approaches used in practice, based on a massive data set covering 8.6 million direct-mail communications with donors to the American Red Cross during 2009–2011. We find evidence that mailed appeals are more effective when they emphasize disaster preparedness and training efforts over post-disaster cleanup. Including small cards that affirm donors’ identity as Red Cross supporters is an effective strategy, whereas including gift items such as address labels is not. Finally, very recent acquisitions are more likely to respond to appeals that ask them to contribute an amount similar to their most recent donation, but this approach has an adverse effect on donors with a longer history. We show via simulation that a simple design strategy based on these insights has potential to improve success rates from 5.4% to 8.1%.
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Prosociality enhances meaning in life
Daryl Van Tongeren et al.
Journal of Positive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
A central feature of meaning in life is a consideration of more than oneself. We extend this logic to suggest that altruistically motivated prosociality – acting in ways that benefit others – is a self-transcending action that may provide meaning in life. Study 1 provided evidence of a relationship between self-reported prosocial behavior and meaning in life, even after statistically controlling for personality traits and self-esteem. Study 2 provided evidence that engaging in a prosocial action, via writing notes of gratitude, increased meaning in life. Study 3 provided evidence that individuals bolster perceptions of prosociality following threats to meaning. Study 4 suggested relationship satisfaction partially mediates the link between prosocial actions and meaning in life. These studies provide initial evidence that prosociality enhances meaning in life.
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Doing good when times are bad: Volunteering behaviour in economic hard times
Chaeyoon Lim & James Laurence
British Journal of Sociology, June 2015, Pages 319–344
Abstract:
This paper examines how the 2008–9 recession has affected volunteering behaviours in the UK. Using a large survey dataset, we assess the recession effects on both formal volunteering and informal helping behaviours. Whilst both formal volunteering and informal helping have been in decline in the UK since 2008, the size of the decline is significantly larger for informal helping than for formal volunteering. The decline is more salient in regions that experienced a higher level of unemployment during the recession and also in socially and economically disadvantaged communities. However, we find that a growing number of people who personally experienced financial insecurity and hardship do not explain the decline. We argue that the decline has more to do with community-level factors such as civic organizational infrastructure and cultural norms of trust and engagement than personal experiences of economic hardship.
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A Friend in Need: Time-Dependent Effects of Stress on Social Discounting in Men
Z. Margittai et al.
Hormones and Behavior, July 2015, Pages 75–82
Abstract:
Stress is often associated with a tend-and-befriend response, a putative coping mechanism where people behave generously towards others in order to invest in social relationships to seek comfort and mutual protection. However, this increase in generosity is expected to be directed only towards a delimited number of socially close, but not distant individuals, because it would be maladaptive to befriend everyone alike. In addition, the endocrinological stress response follows a distinct temporal pattern, and it is believed that tend-and-befriend tendencies can be observed mainly under acute stress. By contrast, the aftermath (> 1 hour after) of stress is associated with endocrinological regulatory processes that are proposed to cause increased executive control and reduced emotional reactivity, possibly eliminating the need to tend-and-befriend. In the present experiment, we set out to investigate how these changes immediately and > 1 hour after a stressful experience affect social-distance-dependent generosity levels, a phenomenon called social discounting. We hypothesized that stress has a time-dependent effect on social discounting, with decisions made shortly after (20 min), but not 90 min after stress showing increased generosity particularly to close others. We found that men tested 20 min after stressor onset indeed showed increased generosity towards close but not distant others compared to non-stressed men or men tested 90 minutes after stressor onset. These findings contribute to our understanding on how stress affects prosocial behavior by highlighting the importance of social closeness and the timing of stress relative to the decision as modulating factors in this type of decision making in men.