Le rôle de la culpabilité dans le marketing de la collecte de fonds : influence sur le don des particuliers

This dissertation falls within the scope of social marketing. The aim is to analyze the effects of guilt induction in fundraising campaigns. After a literature review on charitable giving and guilt in marketing, psychology and social sciences, we focus on guilt triggering, on stimulus intensity and on the reactions of individuals exposed to a guilt-loaded message. Based on three exploratory qualitative studies, we identified how guilt is induced and collected reactions from participants exposed to guilt appeals. We mostly studied the intensity with which the message attempts to evoke guilt in the receiver and individual differences in guilt perception through an experimental study: 432 respondents were exposed to one of three levels of guilt (weak, average and strong). This research examines the emotional responses of the respondents according to different levels of stimuli and is interested in individual responses to these appeals. Afterward, we analyze the impact of these emotional responses on the attitudes towards the message, attitudes towards the charity and donation intentions and probability. The results show that emotional reactions are different depending on the level of guilt evoked. There is a curvilinear relationship between the intensity of guilt and felt guilt: average guilt appeal triggers more felt guilt. People feel manipulated by strong guilt appeal which generates strong irritation feeling. The appeal fails to success: the felt irritation negatively influences the attitudes, donation intentions and probability. Our research suggests the use of average guilt appeals. Appeals that trigger strong guilt are effective: felt guilt has a positive influence on the attitudes towards the message, attitudes towards the charity and donation intentions and probability. Finally, this dissertation highlights individual differences in guilt perception: People who tend to feel guilty or to feel existential guilt, women and youth are more responsive to guilt appeals.