IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v66y2017icp96-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do people donate more when they perceive a single beneficiary whom they know? A field experimental test of the identifiability effect

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Ubaydli, Omar
  • Yeomans, Mike

Abstract

According to the identifiability effect, people will donate more to a single beneficiary rather than to many beneficiaries, holding constant what the donations are actually used for. We test the identifiability effect for two novel subject pools (the suppliers and beneficiaries of volunteer labor). We also test a refinement of the identifiability effect where we vary whether or not the single beneficiary is personally known to the solicitees. While the behavior of volunteers is consistent with the identifiability effect, we find that the identifiability effect is reversed for beneficiaries of volunteer labor. Moreover, we find that making the single beneficiary personally known to the solicitees lowers donations by a statistically insignificant amount, suggesting that it does not enhance donations.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Yeomans, Mike, 2017. "Do people donate more when they perceive a single beneficiary whom they know? A field experimental test of the identifiability effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 96-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:66:y:2017:i:c:p:96-103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804316300179
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:feb:artefa:0093 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier, 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 1-56.
    3. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    4. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    5. Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg, 2004. "A theory of sequential reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 268-298, May.
    6. Small, Deborah A & Loewenstein, George, 2003. "Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 5-16, January.
    7. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    8. Omar Al-Ubaydli & Min Lee, 2011. "Can Tailored Communications Motivate Environmental Volunteers? A Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 323-328, May.
    9. Omar Al-Ubaydli & Min Sok Lee, 2011. "Can Tailored Communications Motivate Volunteers? A Field Experiment," Working Papers 1023, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    10. Hoffman, Elizabeth & McCabe, Kevin & Smith, Vernon L, 1996. "Social Distance and Other-Regarding Behavior in Dictator Games," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 653-660, June.
    11. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List, 2007. "What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 153-174, Spring.
    12. Burnham, Terence C., 2003. "Engineering altruism: a theoretical and experimental investigation of anonymity and gift giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-144, January.
    13. repec:feb:framed:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Deborah A. Small & Uri Simonsohn, 2008. "Friends of Victims: Personal Experience and Prosocial Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 532-542, December.
    15. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2008. "What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-35, October.
    16. Duncan, Brian, 1999. "Modeling charitable contributions of time and money," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 213-242, May.
    17. repec:cup:judgdm:v:2:y:2007:i::p:79-95 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. John List & Michael Price, 2012. "Charitable Giving Around the World: Thoughts on How to Expand the Pie," Natural Field Experiments 00470, The Field Experiments Website.
    19. Craig E. Landry & Andreas Lange & John A. List & Michael K. Price & Nicholas G. Rupp, 2010. "Is a Donor in Hand Better Than Two in the Bush? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 958-983, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Al-Ubaydli, Omar & Yeomans, Mike, 2014. "Do people donate more when they perceive a single beneficiary whom they know? A field experimental test of the identifiability effect," MPRA Paper 55382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Agnès Festré, 2019. "On the Nature of Fair Behaviour: Further Evidence," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 193-207, December.
    3. Lynn, Michael, 2015. "Service gratuities and tipping: A motivational framework," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 74-88.
    4. Yeomans, Michael & Al-Ubaydli, Omar, 2018. "How does fundraising affect volunteering? Evidence from a natural field experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 57-72.
    5. Nadine Chlaß & Peter G. Moffatt, 2017. "Giving in Dictator Games - Experimenter Demand Effect or Preference over the Rules of the Game?," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-044, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    6. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    8. Barmettler, Franziska & Fehr, Ernst & Zehnder, Christian, 2012. "Big experimenter is watching you! Anonymity and prosocial behavior in the laboratory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 17-34.
    9. Alexander Morell, 2014. "The Short Arm of Guilt: Guilt Aversion Plays Out More Across a Short Social Distance," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2014_19, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, revised Dec 2016.
    10. Zultan, Ro’i, 2012. "Strategic and social pre-play communication in the ultimatum game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 425-434.
    11. Rustichini, Aldo & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Moral hypocrisy, power and social preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 10-24.
    12. Alger, Ingela & Van Leeuwen, Boris, 2019. "Estimating Social Preferences and Kantian Morality in Strategic Interactions," TSE Working Papers 19-1056, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2023.
    13. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    14. Jeannette Brosig-Koch & Thomas Riechmann & Joachim Weimann, 2017. "The dynamics of behavior in modified dictator games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, April.
    15. DeScioli, Peter & Krishna, Siddhi, 2013. "Giving to whom? Altruism in different types of relationships," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 218-228.
    16. Frey, Bruno S. & Meier, Stephan, 2004. "Pro-social behavior in a natural setting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 65-88, May.
    17. Timo Heinrich, 2019. "Discussion of “Consequences of Unfair Job Promotions in Organizations”," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 71(1), pages 27-33, February.
    18. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    19. Heinrich, Timo & Weimann, Joachim, 2013. "A note on reciprocity and modified dictator games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 202-205.
    20. Menusch Khadjavi & Kacana Sipangule & Rainer Thiele, 2021. "Social Capital and Large-Scale Agricultural Investments: An Experimental Investigation [Implications of the presence of large scale commercial farmers on small scale farming in Nigeria: the case of," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 420-449.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Solicitation; Donation; Field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:66:y:2017:i:c:p:96-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.