Look to Others Before You Leap: A Systematic Literature Review of Social Information Effects on Donation Amounts

Abstract

People are often influenced by information about other people’s behavior, that is, social information. Social information is frequently used by practitioners hoping to increase charitable giving, while the precise mechanisms through which social information works are unknown. We conducted a systematic literature review of 35 studies reporting on the effects of social information on charitable giving. We show that several studies report no or even negative effects and that a theoretical understanding of social information effects is lacking. We integrate the empirical findings in the wider fields of social psychology and behavioral economics and propose an integrative theoretical model. The model includes four mediators and three moderators that can explain positive and negative effects of social information. This theoretical framework can assist researchers to obtain a deeper understanding of social information and support practitioners in implementing giving tools in donation campaigns.

Follow the crowd: Social information and crowdfunding donations in a large field experiment

“…Donors adjust their charitable behavior according to social information. When individuals are presented with information on the donation amount of previous donors their donation amount increases (for example Alpizar, Carlsson, & Johansson-Stenman, 2008a;Bekkers, 2012;Edwards & List, 2013;Martin & Randal, 2008;Shang, Croson & Reed, 2012;van Teunenbroek, 2016;van Teunenbroek et al, 2020). Only three studies (Croson & Shang, 2008;Kubo, Shoji, Tsuge, & Kuriyama;Meyer & Yang, 2015) that examined effects of social information (reviewed by van Teunenbroek et al, 2019) reported a negative effect on the individual donation amount.…”

“…The prevailing explanation why social information works is that information about the decision of others creates a social norm (Bøg, Harmgart, Huck, & Jeffers, 2012;Croson et al, 2009;Croson & Shang, 2008, 2013Edwards & List, 2013;Meyer & Yang, 2015;Murphy et al, 2015;van Teunenbroek et al, 2020;Sasaki, 2018;Smith et al, 2015). The average donation amount provides a cue about what is typically done by others.…”

“…We assume that the donors in the middle of the campaign are especially sensitive to our form of social information. The assumption is based on the idea that social information provides a quality signal to donors (van Teunenbroek et al, 2020;Vesterlund, 2003), as argued in theories on philanthropy from communication science, behavioral economics, and social psychology. Initial stage.…”

“…This behavior, adjusting the donation amount to the donation behavior of others, is described as the social information effect (Shang & Croson, 2009). A recent systematic literature review (van Teunenbroek, Bekkers & Beersma, 2020) shows that donors informed about the donation amount of previous donors tend to donate higher amounts. While overall previous research tends to find positive effects of social information, its effect depends on several contextual factors.…”

Personalized Fundraising: A Field Experiment on Threshold Matching of Donations

“…Teunenbroek et al (2019) suggest diffusion of responsibility: the higher threshold may convey social information that suggests that others donate more, thus, rendering the own donation as less meaningful. This interpretation would also be broadly in line with a non-behavioral model of…”