That's helpful
Prosocial Conformity: Prosocial Norms Generalize Across Behavior and Empathy
Erik Nook et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Generosity is contagious: People imitate others' prosocial behaviors. However, research on such prosocial conformity focuses on cases in which people merely reproduce others' positive actions. Hence, we know little about the breadth of prosocial conformity. Can prosocial conformity cross behavior types or even jump from behavior to affect? Five studies address these questions. In Studies 1 to 3, participants decided how much to donate to charities before learning that others donated generously or stingily. Participants who observed generous donations donated more than those who observed stingy donations (Studies 1 and 2). Crucially, this generalized across behaviors: Participants who observed generous donations later wrote more supportive notes to another participant (Study 3). In Studies 4 and 5, participants observed empathic or non-empathic group responses to vignettes. Group empathy ratings not only shifted participants' own empathic feelings (Study 4), but they also influenced participants' donations to a homeless shelter (Study 5). These findings reveal the remarkable breadth of prosocial conformity.
---------------------
When Lending a Hand Depletes the Will: The Daily Costs and Benefits of Helping
Klodiana Lanaj, Russell Johnson & Mo Wang
Journal of Applied Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Employees help on a regular daily basis while at work, yet surprisingly little is known about how responding to help requests affects helpers. Although recent theory suggests that helping may come at a cost to the helper, the majority of the helping literature has focused on the benefits of helping. The current study addresses the complex nature of helping by simultaneously considering its costs and benefits for helpers. Using daily diary data across 3 consecutive work weeks, we examine the relationship between responding to help requests, perceived prosocial impact of helping, and helpers' regulatory resources. We find that responding to help requests depletes regulatory resources at an increasing rate, yet perceived prosocial impact of helping can replenish resources. We also find that employees' prosocial motivation moderates these within-person relationships, such that prosocial employees are depleted to a larger extent by responding to help requests, and replenished to a lesser extent by the perceived prosocial impact of helping. Understanding the complex relationship of helping with regulatory resources is important because such resources have downstream effects on helpers' behavior in the workplace. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theory and practice.
---------------------
Dean Karlan & Daniel Wood
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We test how donors respond to new information about a charity's effectiveness. Freedom from Hunger implemented a test of its direct marketing solicitations, varying letters by whether they include a discussion of their program's impact as measured by scientific research. The base script, used for both treatment and control, included a standard qualitative story about an individual beneficiary. Adding scientific impact information has no effect on average likelihood of giving or average gift amount. However, we find important heterogeneity: large prior donors both are more likely to give and also give more, whereas small prior donors are less likely to give. This pattern is consistent with two different types of donors: warm glow donors who respond negatively to analytical effectiveness information, and altruism donors who respond positively to such information.
---------------------
In Pursuit of Good Karma: When Charitable Appeals to Do Right Go Wrong
Katina Kulow & Thomas Kramer
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research examines the implications of consumers' belief in karma - the belief that the universe bestows rewards for doing right and exacts punishments for doing wrong - in the context of prosocial behavior. Although intuitively, believing in karma should result in greater intentions to do right by supporting a charity, karmic beliefs are found to facilitate prosocial behavior only in contexts not associated with self-gains. A series of experiments shows that those with strong (vs. weak) beliefs in karma actually respond less favorably to charitable appeals that rely on common marketing tools meant to enhance consumer responses but that also cue self-gains by offering incentives or by highlighting self-benefits. However, these effects are only obtained for donations of time, which represent a means to enhance social connections, but not for donations of money. Consistent with the proposition that prosocial behaviors motivated by self-gains do not engender karmic rewards, lower intentions to do right among those with strong karmic beliefs are driven by a shift from other-focused to self-focused attention following appeals that cue self-gains, as compared to appeals that do not. Results imply that marketers need to take into account consumers' karmic beliefs when seeking to incentivize prosocial behavior.
---------------------
The emotional consequences of donation opportunities
Lara Aknin, Guy Mayraz & John Helliwell
Journal of Positive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Charities often circulate widespread donation appeals, but who is most likely to donate and how do appeals impact the well-being of individual donors and non-donors, as well as the entire group exposed to the campaign? Here, we investigate three factors that may influence donations (recent winnings, the presence of another person, and matched earnings) in addition to the changes in affect reported by individuals who donate in response to a charitable opportunity and those who do not. Critically, we also investigate the change in affect reported by the entire sample to measure the net impact of the donation opportunity. Results reveal that people winning more money donate a smaller percentage to charity, and the presence of another person does not influence giving. In addition, large donors experience hedonic boosts from giving, and the substantial fraction of large donors translates to a net positive influence on well-being for the entire sample.
---------------------
Eesha Sharma & Vicki Morwitz
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, July 2016, Pages 45-54
Abstract:
People are more generous toward single than toward multiple beneficiaries, and encouraging greater giving to multiple targets is challenging. We identify one factor, perceived efficacy, which enhances generosity toward multiple beneficiaries. We investigate relationships between perceived self-efficacy (believing one can take steps to make an impact), response efficacy (believing those steps will be effective), and charitable giving. Four studies show that increasing perceived self-efficacy increases perceived response efficacy (Studies 1 and 2) and increases donations for multiple beneficiaries (Studies 1-4). Further, results show that boosting perceived self-efficacy enhances giving to a greater extent for multiple than for single beneficiaries (Studies 3 and 4). These effects emerge using various charitable giving contexts, efficacy manipulations, and measures of generosity.