The influence of language style (formal vs. colloquial) on the effectiveness of charitable appeals

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of language style (formal vs. colloquial) on the effectiveness of charitable appeals. Although prior research has found persuasive effects associated with colloquial language style, we propose that the influence of language style is context dependent. Charitable appeals generally address relatively serious topics. Since formal language style is more context congruent in communicating this seriousness, it should be more effective in expressing the emotional arousal or the effort of the communicator, which we expected to result in greater charitable support. Across four studies, we provide important insights on how charitable organizations can better align language style to increase donor support. We find that formal language style (vs. colloquial) results in greater charitable support. We also find evidence for the underlying role of perceptions of emotional arousal, as in indication of effort, in this relationship. Lastly, we find support for a moderator related to one's prior beliefs. Since individuals with high just‐world beliefs are motivated to vary their prosocial behaviors, we find a moderating effect of just‐world beliefs, but only when the belief is high, that is, when individuals seek accountability.

You Can Help Us! The Impact of Formal and Informal Second-Person Pronouns on Monetary Donations

“…As mentioned above, Pfeiffer et al (2023) investigated the impact of formal and informal language styles on the effectiveness of charitable appeals. They found experimental evidence that charitable appeals are more effective when a formal rather than informal language style is used.…”

“…The results of this experiment showed that participants were more likely to indicate support for the charity when presented with an appeal in a formal rather than a colloquial style. Pfeiffer et al (2023) argue that formal language is more congruent in communicating serious topics, and therefore increases charitable support. Importantly, although Pfeiffer et al (2023) found greater charitable support when formal language was used, the use of pronouns was not manipulated in their study.…”

“…Voor meer informatie stuurt u via de contactpagina een mailtje. Pfeiffer et al (2023) investigated the impact of linguistic style (formal vs. informal) on donation intentions. They found that the use of a formal language style in charitable appeals resulted in higher donation intentions than an informal, colloquial style.…”

The more the better? The negative effect of disseminators' donations in online donation

“…Existing studies mainly include three categories of factors that affect the success of online donation projects. One such category includes platform and project factors, such as appeal style (Bruyn & Prokopec, 2013;Kamatham et al, 2021;Moon & Vanepps, 2022), aid effectiveness and framing (Metzger & Günther, 2019), goal gradient (Kivetz et al, 2006), donation collection methods (Suk & Mudita, 2022), and the phrasing of projects (Gu & Chen, 2021;Lu et al, 2022;Pfeiffer et al, 2022).…”

“…Existing studies mainly include three categories of factors that affect the success of online donation projects. One such category includes platform and project factors, such as appeal style (Bruyn & Prokopec, 2013; Kamatham et al, 2021; Moon & Vanepps, 2022), aid effectiveness and framing (Metzger & Günther, 2019), goal gradient (Kivetz et al, 2006), donation collection methods (Suk & Mudita, 2022), and the phrasing of projects (Gu & Chen, 2021; Lu et al, 2022; Pfeiffer et al, 2022). The second category includes initiator factors, such as demographic characteristics (X. Hou et al, 2022), social networks (Castillo et al, 2014; Jiao et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2022), stakeholder support and individual prestige (X. Hou et al, 2022).…”