Nudging Altruism by Color: Blue or Red?

Abstract

Altruism can be spontaneously aroused by environmental factors. However, the mechanism behind these factors is subject to debate. We carried out a study of laboratory experiment using computer-based Mouselab method to determine the mechanism. We found that different colors altered the altruistic behaviors of people. Specifically, blue enhanced altruism, whereas red discouraged altruism. We used a process-tracing technique to monitor the selection of an adaptive strategy and demonstrate that different colors can simulate changes in information acquisition and then lead to the corresponding behaviors. The results suggested that the decision heuristic plays a mediating role in the link between colors and individual altruistic behaviors.

A Laugh and a Burst of Kindness: The Impact of Comedy on Altruistic Behavior in Rural Nepal

“…North et al (2004) finds that music also has an e↵ect on people's willingness to help. Nie et al (2020) shows that blue background color enhance the donation amount. Iwamoto et al (2020) finds that mindfulness mediation videos makes people willing to donate more for charity.…”

A Laugh and a Burst of Kindness: The Impact of Comedy on Altruistic Behavior in Rural Nepal

“…North et al (2004) finds that music also has an e↵ect on people's willingness to help. Nie et al (2020) shows that blue background color enhance the donation amount. Iwamoto et al (2020) finds that mindfulness mediation videos makes people willing to donate more for charity.…”

Influence of perspective taking through robotic virtual agents on prosocial behavior

“…In the field of HRI, several robots have been developed to promote donation [31], which has been treated as a representation of altruistic behavior [32]. In addition, in the fields of HRI and HAI, studies have been done on the factors of robots and agents that promote donation, such as the social background of users [33], where a robot is installed [34], the gender of a robot [35], the appearance of a robot [36], the head behavior of humanoid robots [37], and the facial expressions of virtual agents [38].…”