Reputation and influence in charitable giving: an experiment

Reinstein, David; Riener, Gerhard

doi:10.1007/s11238-011-9245-8

Cited by 64 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Corresponding with the second form of transactional reciprocity, a gift to support a shared good or environment may generate indirect observer reciprocity where the observer responds to the gift with one of his own. The recognition of such an effect is consistent with experiments showing that donors gave more when their gifts would be observed before, rather than after, other donors' giving decisions (Reinstein and Riener, 2012b).…”

Section: "Manage Decision Avoidance" [Relative To Its Alternatives]supporting

confidence: 83%

Natural philanthropy: a new evolutionary framework explaining diverse experimental results and informing fundraising practice

James

2017

Palgrave Commun

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Philanthropic decision-making is important both for its potential to provide insight into human behaviour and for its economic significance. In recent years, investigations of charitable-giving behaviour have expanded substantially, including explorations from a variety of disciplinary perspectives such as economics, marketing, sociology, public administration, anthropology, evolutionary biology, political science and psychology. These investigations have resulted in a wealth of experimental results with each investigation accompanied by a discussion of potential theoretical implications. Most commonly, the various theories employed are helpful with regard to the narrow result of the investigation, but are not always useful in explaining the wider universe of results. Taking a comprehensive view of charitable-giving behaviour is thus limited to either employing a wide assortment of overlapping theoretical models, selectively applying each to fit individual phenomena, or merely referencing an ad hoc assortment of potential motivations. This circumstance suggests the value of a more unified, comprehensive approach to understanding the complete range of experimental and empirical results in charitable giving. This article proposes a comprehensive framework for philanthropic decision-making using a simple evolutionary approach incorporating interrelated fitness-enhancing strategies. The framework is then used in an extensive review of experimental and other empirical results in philanthropic decisionmaking. This review supports the framework proposition that giving depends on the tangibility of a gift's impact on altruism (direct or code), reciprocity (transactional or friendship) and possessions relative to its alternatives. Five example principles of fundraising practice demonstrate the practical applicability of this proposition: advance the donor hero story (tangibility of direct or code altruism); make the charity like family (friendship reciprocity); provide compatible publicity and benefits (transactional reciprocity); minimize perceived loss (possessions); and manage decision avoidance (relative to its alternatives). Understanding philanthropic behaviour from this perspective provides explanation and guidance for a wide range of charitable-giving behaviours and fundraising practices even in areas less amenable to traditional experimental investigation, such as charitable bequests and major gifts.

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Section: "Manage Decision Avoidance" [Relative To Its Alternatives]supporting

confidence: 83%

Natural philanthropy: a new evolutionary framework explaining diverse experimental results and informing fundraising practice

James

2017

Palgrave Commun

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“…Indeed, the experimental literature documents that the relationship between visibility and prosocial behavior is often positive. However, a number of visibility treatments have produced null or negative results (Gächter and Fehr 1999, Soetevent 2005, Dufwenberg and Muren 2006, Noussair and Tucker 2007, Alpizar et al 2008, and Reinstein and Riener 2012, suggesting that the impact of public recognition may be more complex than commonly thought. 1 1 Visibility increases contribution in public goods games in Bohnet and Frey (1999), Andreoni and Petrie (2004), and Rege and Telle (2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wallflowers: Experimental Evidence of an Aversion to Standing Out

Jones

Linardi

2014

Management Science

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A n extensive literature on reputation signaling in prosocial settings has focused on an intrinsic desire for positive reputation. In this paper, we provide experimental evidence that some individuals are averse to both positive and negative reputation and will therefore respond to visibility by signaling that they are an "average altruism type" relative to their audience. We formalize our hypotheses about "wallflower" behavior in a theoretical model. Our experimental results show that instead of uniformly increasing contributions, visibility draws contributions toward the middle of others' contributions. As a result, visibility is associated with higher levels of giving only in scenarios where others are giving a large amount. We also observe heterogeneity in reputation concerns: wallflower behavior is particularly strong for women and can be observed in several different settings.Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.

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“…When philanthropic behaviour is publicly observable people give more (Soetevent, 2005;Reinstein and Riener, 2012). Religious donations often take place in a religious institution, which makes them publicly observable.…”

Section: Individual Religiosity and Charitable Givingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Association of Religious Context with Giving to Non-Profit Organizations

Wiepking¹,

Bekkers²,

Osili³

2014

European Sociological Review

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Why do citizens in religious groups and more religious countries give money to charitable causes? In this article we aim to theoretically and empirically unravel the influence of religious composition on giving to non-profit organizations across countries. Building on theories and research in sociology, social psychology, and economics we formulate hypotheses about individual-and contextuallevel differences in engagement in religious and secular charitable giving. We test our hypotheses with multi-level analyses using data from the European Social Survey that include 21 European countries complemented with matching data from the United States (N 1 ¼ 41,314; N 2 ¼ 22). The results show no relationship between country-level devoutness and engagement in religious or secular giving. We do find that citizens in countries with a higher level of religious heterogeneity are more likely to engage in religious giving but not secular giving. We test two explanations for the relationship between giving and religious heterogeneity. We find support for the minority hypothesis that people belonging to a religious minority have a higher likelihood of giving but not for the group size hypothesis that the relative size of the religious denomination to which people belong to decreases their engagement in charitable giving.

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Reputation and influence in charitable giving: an experiment

Cited by 64 publications

References 46 publications

Natural philanthropy: a new evolutionary framework explaining diverse experimental results and informing fundraising practice

Natural philanthropy: a new evolutionary framework explaining diverse experimental results and informing fundraising practice

Wallflowers: Experimental Evidence of an Aversion to Standing Out

Examining the Association of Religious Context with Giving to Non-Profit Organizations

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