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Do Sympathy Biases Induce Charitable Giving" The Effects of Advertising Content

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Abstract

We randomize advertising content motivated by the psychology literature on sympathy generation and framing effects in mailings to about 185,000 prospective new donors in India. We find significant impact on the number of donors and amounts donated consistent with sympathy biases such as the "identifiable victim," "in-group" and "reference dependence." A monthly reframing of the ask amount increases donors and amount donated relative to daily reframing. A second field experiment targeted to past donors, finds that the effect of sympathy bias on giving is smaller in percentage terms but statistically and economically highly significant in terms of the magnitude of additional dollars raised. Methodologically, the paper complements the work of behavioral scholars by adopting an empirical researchers� lens of measuring relative effect sizes and economic relevance of multiple behavioral theoretical constructs in the sympathy bias and charity domain within one field setting. Beyond the benefit of conceptual replications, the effect sizes provide guidance to managers on which behavioral theories are most managerially and economically relevant when developing advertising content.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Sudhir & Subroto Roy & Mathew Cherian, 2014. "Do Sympathy Biases Induce Charitable Giving" The Effects of Advertising Content," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1940, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jan 2016.
  • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1940
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    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d19/d1940.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Septianto, Felix & Tjiptono, Fandy, 2019. "The interactive effect of emotional appeals and past performance of a charity on the effectiveness of charitable advertising," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 189-198.
    2. Raphael Thomadsen & Robert P. Rooderkerk & On Amir & Neeraj Arora & Bryan Bollinger & Karsten Hansen & Leslie John & Wendy Liu & Aner Sela & Vishal Singh & K. Sudhir & Wendy Wood, 2018. "How Context Affects Choice," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 5(1), pages 3-14, March.
    3. Geoffrey Fisher & Matthew McGranaghan & Jura Liaukonyte & Kenneth C. Wilbur, 2023. "Price promotions, beneficiary framing, and mental accounting," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 147-181, June.
    4. Cassandra R. Chambers & Wayne E. Baker, 2020. "Robust Systems of Cooperation in the Presence of Rankings: How Displaying Prosocial Contributions Can Offset the Disruptive Effects of Performance Rankings," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 287-307, March.
    5. Brett R Gordon & Kinshuk Jerath & Zsolt Katona & Sridhar Narayanan & Jiwoong Shin & Kenneth C Wilbur, 2019. "Inefficiencies in Digital Advertising Markets," Papers 1912.09012, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2020.
    6. Chenxi Li & Xueming Luo & Cheng Zhang, 2017. "Sunny, Rainy, and Cloudy with a Chance of Mobile Promotion Effectiveness," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(5), pages 762-779, September.
    7. Anindya Ghose & Beibei Li & Meghanath Macha & Chenshuo Sun & Natasha Ying Zhang Foutz, 2020. "Trading Privacy for the Greater Social Good: How Did America React During COVID-19?," Papers 2006.05859, arXiv.org.
    8. Ernan Haruvy & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Greg Allenby & Russell Belk & Catherine Eckel & Robert Fisher & Sherry Xin Li & John A. List & Yu Ma & Yu Wang, 2020. "Fundraising design: key issues, unifying framework, and open puzzles," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 371-380, December.
    9. Dokyun Lee & Kartik Hosanagar & Harikesh S. Nair, 2018. "Advertising Content and Consumer Engagement on Social Media: Evidence from Facebook," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5105-5131, November.
    10. Shijie Lu & Dai Yao & Xingyu Chen & Rajdeep Grewal, 2021. "Do Larger Audiences Generate Greater Revenues Under Pay What You Want? Evidence from a Live Streaming Platform," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(5), pages 964-984, September.
    11. Robert Mislavsky & Berkeley Dietvorst & Uri Simonsohn, 2020. "Critical Condition: People Don’t Dislike a Corporate Experiment More Than They Dislike Its Worst Condition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 1092-1104, November.
    12. K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2019. "Greedy or Grateful? Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Mar 2021.
    13. Ronald Conlin & Steven Bauer, 2022. "Examining the impact of differing guilt advertising appeals among the Generation Z cohort," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 19(2), pages 289-308, June.
    14. Navdeep S. Sahni & S. Christian Wheeler & Pradeep Chintagunta, 2018. "Personalization in Email Marketing: The Role of Noninformative Advertising Content," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(2), pages 236-258, March.
    15. Yun Young Hur & Fujie Jin & Xitong Li & Yuan Cheng & Yu Jeffrey Hu, 2023. "Does Social Influence Change with Other Information Sources? A Large-Scale Randomized Experiment in Medical Crowdfunding," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(4), pages 1476-1492, December.
    16. Kopalle, Praveen K. & Krishna, Aradhna & Rajan, Uday & Wang, Yu, 2022. "How does regulatory monitoring of cause marketing affect firm behavior and donations to charity?," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 947-966.
    17. Yong Zhang & Chuling Lin & Jialing Yang, 2019. "Time or Money? The Influence of Warm and Competent Appeals on Donation Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-17, November.
    18. K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2014. "Greedy or Grateful" Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Butts, Marcus M. & Lunt, Devin C. & Freling, Traci L. & Gabriel, Allison S., 2019. "Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 16-33.
    20. Kurt P. Munz & Minah H. Jung & Adam L. Alter, 2020. "Name Similarity Encourages Generosity: A Field Experiment in Email Personalization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(6), pages 1071-1091, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charitable giving; Sympathy biases; Identified victim effect; Non-profit marketing; Advertising; Behavioral economics; Conceptual replications;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • C99 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Other

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