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Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially

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Author Info
Dan Ariely () (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Anat Bracha () (Tel Aviv University)
Stephan Meier () (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and IZA)

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Abstract

This paper experimentally examines image motivation - the desire to be liked and wellregarded by others - as a driver in prosocial behavior (doing good), and asks whether extrinsic monetary incentives (doing well) have a detrimental effect on prosocial behavior due to crowding out of image motivation. By definition, image depends on one’s behavior being visible to other people. Using this unique property we show that image is indeed an important part of the motivation to behave prosocially. Moreover, we show that extrinsic incentives interact with image motivation and are therefore less effective in public than in private. Together, these results imply that image motivation is crowded out by monetary incentives; which in turn means that monetary incentives are more likely to be counterproductive for public prosocial activities than for private ones.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 2968.

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Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2968

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Related research
Keywords: prosocial behavior extrinsic incentives image motivation experiments

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism
C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Jeffrey Carpenter & Caitlin Knowles Myers, 2007. "Why Volunteer? Evidence on the Role of Altruism, Reputation, and Incentives," IZA Discussion Papers 3021, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Linardi, Sera & McConnell, Margaret A., 2008. "Volunteering and image concerns," Working Papers 1282, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. [Downloadable!]
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