The kindness of strangers: Theory and evidence on spatial distance and giving

Arguments for directing charitable giving to distant beneficiaries for their greater benefits contradict actual charitable donations that go mostly to more proximate beneficiaries. Controlled studies reveal mixed results finding the giving-distance relationship to be direct, inverse, flat, or various combinations of the three. This paper reports a new theory of the distinctive relationship between giving and spatial distance and relevant results from four experimental studies. Two studies vary distances between donors and beneficiaries locally: a field experiment involves local refugees and a laboratory experiment local people in need. Both find significant inverse relationships between giving and spatial distance. Two other studies involve variations at farther distances. One is a laboratory experiment that finds no significant effect of distance, but further analysis suggests that a confounding factor, viz., beneficiary need, contributes to that fact. The other is survey experiment that indicates numerous additional confounding factors in comparisons involving far distances. The experimental results are largely consistent with the predictions of the theory: giving is decreasing in spatial distance, ceteris paribus, and is decreasing in exposure to displaced persons, decreasing in support for beneficiaries from sources external to the experiment (e.g., government aid), increasing in donor intrinsic generosity, and increasing in beneficiary need. We also find qualified support for the hypothesized mediator between spatial distance and giving, moral salience. Together, these results confirm our focus on local distances, indicate the presence of confounding factors over far distances, and offer an explanation to reconcile the conflicting results in the prior literature.