Past research has shown repeatedly that people prefer donating to a single identified human victim rather than to unidentified or abstract donation targets. In the current research we show results countering the identifiable victim effect, wherein people prefer to donate to charitable organizations rather than to an identifiable victim. In a series of five studies, we manipulate temporal and social distance, examine a variety of donation targets, and measure intention to donate time or money as well as actual donations of money. We show that people are more willing to donate to a charitable organization when they are temporally or socially distant from the population in need. Willingness to donate to a specific person in need is higher when donors are temporally or socially close to the donation target. Furthermore, we demonstrate that (a) empathy mediates donations to a single victim, yet does not mediate donations to charitable organizations; (b) that donation giving to charitable organizations is unique and is not similar to donations to a group of victims. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The increasing alienation of people from nature is profoundly concerning because people's interactions with nature affect well-being, affinity for nature, and support of biodiversity conservation. Efforts to restore or enhance people's interactions with nature are, therefore, important to ensure sustainable human and wildlife communities, but little is known about how this can be achieved. A key factor that shapes the way people interact with nature is their affinity for nature (often measured as nature relatedness [NR]). We explored how using cues to experience nature as a means to induce NR situationally can influence the quality of people's nature interactions on visits to green spaces and their positive affect after the visit. Cues to experience are cues that guide individuals on how to interact with nature. We surveyed 1023 visitors to a nature reserve to examine the relationships between trait (i.e., stable and long-lasting) and state (i.e., temporary, brief) NR, the quality of nature interactions, and positive affect. We also conducted a controlled experiment in which 303 participants spent 30 min outdoors on campus and reported the quality of their nature interactions and positive affect. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 9 cues-to-experience experimental groups (e.g., smell flowers, observe wildlife, turn off your phone) that differed in the psychological distance from nature that they prompted. Participants who received cues of close psychological distance from nature (e.g., smell and touch natural elements) interacted 3 to 4 times more with nature and reported 0.2 more positive affect than other participants. Our results demonstrate that providing cues to experience nature, which bring people closer to nature and potentially induce state NR, can enhance the quality of people's nature interactions and their positive affect. These results highlight the role of NR in high-quality nature interactions and suggest the use of cues to experience as a promising avenue for inducing state NR and promoting meaningful interactions with biodiversity, thus, reconciling conservation and well-being objectives.

No one likes feeling empty. When people feel empty they seek replenishment, which usually takes the form of increased self‐focused behaviors that provide value to the self and decreased other‐focused behaviors that provide value to others. This research demonstrates how exposure to the concept of emptiness by simply performing or observing acts of emptying (vs. filling or control) of a glass vase, coat pockets, a glass jar, or a duffle bag triggers the cognitive metaphor of resource deficiency. The resource deficiency metaphor in turn leads people to engage in self‐focused behaviors such as eating candy or planning a dream vacation and to disengage from other‐focused behaviors such as donating to charities or helping others.

Many charitable organizations offer potential donors the option to choose their donation recipients-suggesting that organizations perceive the availability of such choice as beneficial to donation raising. Building upon research on choice aversion in the context of consumer goods and on the identifiable victim effect in the context of donation giving, we propose that the need to choose one target among multiple needy targets might, in fact, hinder donations. Results of six studies show that when prospective donors are asked to choose between two similar donation targets, they are more likely to opt out of donating altogether than when asked to donate to a single target. We show that the effect of choice on opt-out rates in donation settings is driven by the conflict between the wish to be helpful and the wish to be fair. We further show that when the conflict is resolved and the choice does not raise fairness concerns, the effect is attenuated and opt-out rates decline.

Research has neglected the utility of pro-social goals within achievement situations. In this article, four studies demonstrate that amity goal orientation, promoting mutual success of oneself together with others, enhances the utility of mastery goal orientation. We demonstrate this in longitudinally predicting performance (Studies 1 and 2) and in maintaining motivation after a disappointing performance (Studies 3 and 4). The studies demonstrate the same interaction effect in academic and in work achievement contexts. Specifically, whereas amity goal orientation did not predict achievement on its own, it enhanced the positive effect of mastery goal orientation. Together, these studies establish the importance of amity goal orientation while also advancing our understanding of the effects of other achievement goal orientations. We suggest future directions in examining the utility of amity goals in other contexts.

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Values are broad motivations that can serve as the basis for goals. We propose that values can be used to understand the motivational basis of amity goal orientation, a prosocial goal orientation within achievement situations. We offer theory and empirical evidence relating personal values to amity goal orientation and other achievement goal orientations. Specifically, the results of three studies and a mini meta-analysis suggest that the prosocial value of benevolence is positively related to amity goal orientation and can be interpreted as the motivational basis of amity goal orientation. Furthermore, power values are positively related to performance-approach goal orientation; self-direction values are positively related to mastery goal orientation, and security values are positively related to performance-avoidance goal orientation. These findings can explain the pattern of correlations previously found among achievement goal orientations, and open up the potential for new research on amity goal orientation as well as other value-based achievement goal orientations.

In this paper, we suggest people use anonymous online forums as platforms for self-disclosing actions they feel guilty about—such as transgressions and unethical behaviors—with the goal of achieving guilt relief through others’ reactions. We support this proposition by analyzing field data extracted from Yahoo Answers, an online question-and-answer website. Our analysis shows the level of guilt relief an answer is expected to offer the “asker” (the self-disclosing person) is positively associated with the asker’s likelihood of selecting that answer as the “best” response to the self-disclosure. Furthermore, following receipt of a guilt-relieving answer, an asker becomes less likely to engage in prosocial behavior, which is another type of guilt-relieving action.