IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/judgdm/v21y2026ip-_1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The ironic effect of entitlement: Giving behavior increases with entitled pursuit of information

Author

Listed:
  • Ritov, Ilana
  • Garcia, Stephen M.

Abstract

Willingness to help a needy person may depend on whether the person is perceived as responsible for their predicament. However, information regarding the cause is not always available, and people often ‘look the other way’ when it is. The present research explores whether potential donors choose to obtain information about the cause of the other’s need and, more importantly, how this choice to pursue information is affected by the donors’ feelings of entitlement. Across four studies, we find that decision makers who pursue information about why others are in need are more likely to offer help. Yet we also measure and manipulate the feelings of entitlement and find that those who are high in entitlement are more likely to seek the information regarding the person in need. Their higher tendency to pursue more information makes them more likely to help than they would otherwise.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritov, Ilana & Garcia, Stephen M., 2026. "The ironic effect of entitlement: Giving behavior increases with entitled pursuit of information," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21, pages 1-1, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:21:y:2026:i::p:-_1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1930297525100272/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:cup:judgdm:v:21:y:2026:i::p:-_1. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jdm .

    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.