Altruism, Warm Glow
and Charitable Giving
3rd SPI Conference, September 12, 2015
René Bekkers, Dave Verkaik
Philanthropic Studies, VU University Amsterdam
Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm
Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, IUPUI
Thanks to
• Co-authors: Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm (IUPUI)
and Dave Verkaik (VU) + undergrads
• Funders: Templeton Foundation through
the Science of Philanthropy Initiative
September 12, 2015
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Smart Philanthropy
• Before spending the $29,999 from SPI for a
field experiment, we invested ~$3,500 of
our own money on four pilot experiments.
• Today I will share insights from these
pilot experiments.
• We have learned some lessons about the
reliability of published research, as well as
fundraising materials used in practice.
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Envisioned field experiment
• Past participants in the Giving in the
Netherlands Panel Survey 2015 receive a
letter explaining the experiment and a link
to an online survey in which the
experiment is implemented.
• Informed consent + ERB approval.
• Six decisions, one implemented.
• Match donations in experiment with
Oxfam donation history from database.
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Key results thus far
• It is very difficult to get people to give
more by priming morality.
• Crowding-out effects are highly contextdependent.
• Dispositional empathic concern and the
principle of care are strong predictors of
donations.
• We understand little of the heterogeneity
in treatment effects.
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Three experiments
1. Van Vliet, R. (2014). Geefgedrag in Nederland:
Altruïsme of Egoïsme? Onderzoek naar empathie, het
principe van zorg, en het crowding-out effect. Master
Thesis VU Amsterdam.
2. Bekkers, R. & D.J. Verkaik (2015). Six Primes That Do
Not Affect the Principle of Care. Mimeo, VU
Amsterdam.
3. Verkaik, D.J., Bekkers, R. & Ottoni-Wilhelm, M. (2015).
“Do What’s Right” and the Principle of Care. Mimeo,
VU Amsterdam.
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The Big Questions - nested
1. Why do
people give?
2. When do altruism
and warm glow
motivate giving?
3. How much giving do
altruism and warm glow
motivate?
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Giving = Altruism + Warm Glow
• Giving can be motivated by altruism
(utility from well-being of recipients) as
well as warm glow (utility from giving).
• Under altruism, giving should be crowded
out by giving by others.
• Previous tests have examined crowdingout at relatively low levels of giving by
others.
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Hypotheses
Empathic
concern
+
Third party
contributions
+
-
Private
giving
-
+
Principle
of care
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Challenges
• Developing a test of the effects of third
party contributions in a natural way;
• Developing a measure of the state of
principle of care;
• Developing a manipulation of the
principle of care that temporarily
increases the state of care.
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Solutions
• Talking to scholars to hear about null
findings and failed replications in
unpublished research. To our detriment,
we found that interventions based on
published research did not work.
• Looking at materials used in the practice
of fundraising.
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Budgets
Ottoni-Wilhelm, Vesterlund & Xie, 2014
Budget
€ funded by
sponsor
€ for participant
1
2
3
4
5
4
10
28
34
4
40
40
40
40
46
6
28
46
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Budgets
€ for participant
1
2
3
4
5
4
10
28
34
4
40
40
40
40
46
6
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3rd SPI Conference 2015
Income
€ funded by
sponsor G-i
Crowding-out
Budget
46
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Procedure
• All 6 budgets are evaluated in random
order by participants.
• Only 1 will be implemented.
• Yields measures of altruism (α) and warm
glow (β) within participants.
• In Ottoni-Wilhelm, Vesterlund & Xie
(2014) giving is influenced primarily by
altruism and less so by warm glow.
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Inducing empathy / morality
• Can we use subtle manipulations to
increase empathy and the principle of
care?
• We looked at the priming literature and
talked to several psychologists warning us
against using scrambled sentences,
subliminal and physical cues, in order to
avoid disappointment.
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• Perhaps asking participants about their
self-image as an empathic / moral person
primes empathy and the principle of care.
• Reminding people of the norm, either
secular or religious, should also increase
the principle of care.
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Priming empathy and morality
• Participants read an
article about Oxfam
helping a family in
need by providing
them with chickens.
• Participants either
completed empathy
and principle of care
Design: 2 (self-image questions: no, yes) x 4 (priming:
scales or not.
none, image of hands, religion, moral appeal)
Participants: MTurk (n = 457)
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The principle of care - trait
a. People should be willing to help others who are less fortunate.
b. Everybody in this world has a responsibility to help others when they need
assistance.
c. These days people need to look after themselves and not overly worry
about others.
d. When people are less fortunate, it is important to help them even if they are
very different from us.
e. It is important to help one another so that the community in general is a
better place.
f. Personally assisting people in trouble is very important to me.
g. When thinking about helping people in trouble, it is important to consider
whether the people are like us or not.
h. We should not care too much about the needs of people in other parts of the
world.
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A better measure of state care
• We decided to use an adjective checklist,
describing the principle of care, avoiding
emotions.
–
–
–
–
–
Moral
Rational
Principled
Deliberate
Responsible
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Following the model of the
empathic state measure
developed by Batson et al.,
1997
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State care measure
Please indicate the degree to which you
thought about these principles after reading
the story. Responsibility, Helpfulness,
Beauty(F) Benevolence, Loyalty(F), Humanity,
Commonality, Authority(F), Assisting,
Commitment, Purity(F), Justice, Selfcentered(*), Liberty, Disregard(*), Remoteness(*)
Three factors: care, isolation(*), fillers(F)
Good reliability, α = .86; .70; .87
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Familiar correlations
Trait care
State care for
recipients
State empathy
adjectives
State care adjectives
Filler adjectives
Isolation adjectives
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Trait
empathy
.69
.60
Trait
care
.57
.58
.75
.33
.01
-.06
.55
.02
-.22
.65
.27
-.22
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State care for
recipients
.69
22
BUT NO EFFECTS OF…
• Having participants complete questions
on empathy and the principle of care
• Asking participants ‘How religious are
you?’ before they make donation choices
• Adding the sentence ‘You can do the right
thing by donating..’
• Showing participants a pair of hands
adding ‘with your donation you are able to
help end injustices that cause poverty’
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Self-image on states…
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
state care for state empathy
recipients
adjectives
-0.6
state care
adjectives
filler
adjectives
48 < n < 117; 0.256 < F < 1.686 (df = 3); p > .167
isolation
adjectives
48 < n < 65; F = 2.685 (df = 3); p = .047
-0.8
-1
no self-image
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care only
empathy only
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care and empathy
24
Priming on states…
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
state care for state empathy
recipients
adjectives
-0.6
state care
adjectives
filler
adjectives
isolation
adjectives
55 < n < 118; 0.271 < F < 1.435 (df = 3); p > .233
-0.8
-1
no priming
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hands
religion
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moral appeal
25
…or giving behavior
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Average gift (€)
no priming
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hands
Gives > 0 (%)
religion
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moral appeal
26
Very little crowding out
25
% of responses
20
4
15
10
28
10
34
5
n = 457
0
gives nothing
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gives half
27
Budgets
ΔG-i
Δgi
Crowding-out
Effect
6: 4  10
6: 28  34
18: 10 28
24: 4  28
30: 4  34
-.37
-.04
-.65
-1.02
-1.68
-.06
-.01
-.03
-.04
-.06
24 (W46): 4  28
-.69
-.03
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ΔG-i
0
6
12
18
24
30
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
ΔGi
-1
-1.2
-1.4
-1.6
-1.8
-2
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y = -0.0506x + 0.169
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ΔG-i
0
6
12
18
24
30
0
-5
Observed crowd-out
y = -0.0506x + 0.169
-10
ΔGi
-15
-20
-25
-30
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Why so little crowding-out?
• Mturk participants?
• Hypothetical donations?
• A large pool of potential donors.
• Donations benefit families like the Abejide
family, not one specific individual with a
specific need.
• Not a lab study.
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Source: De Wit, A. & Bekkers, R.
(2015). Government Support and
Charitable Donations: A MetaAnalysis of the Crowding-Out
Hypothesis. Paper under review.
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Crowding-in Oxfam donations
Van Vliet, 2014
100
90
94
88
82
No induction
(n=96)
80
70
No social information
60
50
VU University donates
€10
40
Remembered that VU
donates €10
30
20
10
0
Donates €20
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Empathy lowers crowding-in
Van Vliet, 2014
100
90
80
79
83
81
70
Empathy
induction (n=96)
No social information
60
50
VU University donates
€10
40
Remembered that VU
donates €10
30
20
10
0
Donates €20
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Care induces crowding-out
Van Vliet, 2014
100
90
Care induction
(n=107)
88
80
70
70
69
No social information
60
50
VU University donates
€10
40
Remembered that VU
donates €10
30
20
10
0
Donates €20
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Does care affect crowding out?
100
Gives > €0
90
% of responses
80
70
60
4
50
10
40
28
30
34
20
n = 55 (no
self-image
questions)
10
0
No priming
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Moral appeal: "do what's right"
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Does care affect crowding out?
100
Gives > €0
90
% of responses
80
70
60
4
50
10
40
28
30
34
20
10
0
No priming
September 12, 2015
n = 57
(started
with selfMoral appeal: "do what's right" image
questions)
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Empathy / care and giving
Amount donated in W = 40 budgets
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
trait care
trait state care state care state
filler
isolation
empathy
for
adjectives empathy adjectives adjectives
recipients
adjectives
.40 < r < .51
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r = .11
r = -.36
38
Empathy / care do not affect
crowding-out
Difference between donation in
G-i=4 and G-i=34
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
state care
state
trait
for
state care empathy
filler
isolation
trait care empathy recipients adjectives adjectives adjectives adjectives
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
-2.5
-3
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Summary of results thus far
• Very little crowd-out.
• No priming effects whatsoever on
empathic or moral states or giving.
• Crowding-out does not vary with primes
or self-image.
• Hypothetical giving increases strongly
with dispositional empathy / care.
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Learning from practice
• How would practitioners prime the
principle of care?
• Can we develop an effective manipulation
that can easily be used in practice?
• To what extent do real world fundraising
materials affect the principle of care?
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Testing
• Participants are first
exposed to Oxfam’s
mission statement in
different visual forms.
• Then participants
completed state and
dispositional measures.
Design: 3 (visual: text only, text with still image, video) x
• No giving.
2 (moral appeal: no, yes)
Participants: Crowdflower (n = 287); MTurk (n = 304)
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Oxfam
America
mission
statement
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Excluding
references to
injustice,
‘right the
wrong’
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Principle of care state
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5
4.9
Excluding appeal
4.8
Including appeal
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Principle of care disposition
4.2
4.1
*
4
3.9
Excluding appeal
3.8
Including appeal
3.7
3.6
3.5
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Empathic concern state
5.5
5.4
5.3
5.2
5.1
5
Excluding appeal
4.9
Including appeal
4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Empathic concern disposition
4
*
3.9
3.8
Excluding appeal
3.7
Including appeal
3.6
3.5
3.4
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Personal distress state
3.2
3
*
2.8
Excluding appeal
2.6
Including appeal
2.4
2.2
2
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Personal distress disposition
2.7
2.6
2.5
2.4
Excluding appeal
2.3
Including appeal
2.2
2.1
2
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Perspective taking disposition
4.5
4
*
3.5
Excluding appeal
Including appeal
3
2.5
2
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Universalism values
5.7
5.6
5.5
Excluding appeal
5.4
Including appeal
5.3
5.2
5.1
Text
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Text + image
Video
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Benevolence values
5.8
5.7
5.6
5.5
5.4
Excluding appeal
5.3
Including appeal
5.2
5.1
5
Text
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Text + image
Video
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What we learned from practice
• Exposure to the Oxfam America mission
statement marginally increased (+5-10%)
the state of care, empathy, and distress.
• Also trait empathy and care are affected.
• These effects are most pronounced for the
video, followed by the text only version.
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Remember the model
Empathic
concern
+
Third party
contributions
+
-
Private
giving
-
+
Principle
of care
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Our findings thus far
Empathic
concern
+
Third party
contributions
-
Private
giving
(very small)
+
Principle
of care
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Remaining questions
MTurk:
• How can we more effectively manipulate
the principle of care?
Field experiment:
• Does it increase giving, its motivation, and
affect crowding-out?
• In the long run? Among whom?
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René Bekkers
Center for Philanthropic Studies
Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam
r.bekkers@vu.nl
www.giving.nl
Twitter: @renebekkers