IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v131y2021i639p2887-2919..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Casting Doubt: Image Concerns and the Communication of Social Impact

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Foerster
  • Joël J van der Weele

Abstract

We investigate strategic communication about the social impact of costly prosocial actions. A ‘sender’ with noisy information about impact sends a cheap-talk message to a ‘receiver’, upon which both agents choose whether to act. In the presence of social preferences and image concerns, the sender trades off persuasion, exaggerating impact to induce receiver action, and justification, downplaying impact to cast doubt on the effectiveness of action and excuse her own passivity. In an experiment on charitable giving we find evidence for both motives. In line with our theory and a justification motive, increasing image concerns reduces communication of positive impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Foerster & Joël J van der Weele, 2021. "Casting Doubt: Image Concerns and the Communication of Social Impact," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(639), pages 2887-2919.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:639:p:2887-2919.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/ueab014
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emilio Esguerra & Leonhard Vollmer & Johannes Wimmer, 2023. "Influence Motives in Social Signaling: Evidence from COVID-19 Vaccinations in Germany," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 275-291, June.
    2. Soraperra, Ivan & van der Weele, Joël & Villeval, Marie Claire & Shalvi, Shaul, 2023. "The social construction of ignorance: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 197-213.
    3. Koessler, Ann-Kathrin, 2022. "Pledges and how social influence shapes their effectiveness," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    4. Manuel Foerster & Daniel Habermacher, 2023. "Policy-advising Competition and Endogenous Lobbies," Working Papers 229, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    5. Koessler, Ann Kathrin, 2022. "Pledges and how social influence shapes their effectiveness," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114538, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Jantsje M. Mol & Ivan Soraperra & Joël J. van der Weele, 2023. "Spoiling the party. Experimental evidence on the willingness to transmit inconvenient ethical information," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 23-062/I, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Hillenbrand, Adrian & Verrina, Eugenio, 2022. "The asymmetric effect of narratives on prosocial behavior," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 241-270.

    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:oup:econjl:v:131:y:2021:i:639:p:2887-2919.. 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: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    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.