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Thumbs Down for the Thumbs Up Emoji: Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Instantaneous Positive Reinforcement on Charitable Giving

SSRN Electronic Journal
2022
  • 0
    Citations
  • 4,885
    Usage
  • 6
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Usage
    4,885
    • Abstract Views
      4,748
    • Downloads
      137
  • Captures
    6
  • Ratings
    • Download Rank
      422,839

Article Description

Historically, positive reinforcement (PRI) for charitable giving happens after the fact: thank-you letters, calls, or gifts from the charities to donors. With online giving becoming more prevalent, there exists an opportunity for instantaneous PRI. Our study offers the first evidence, to our knowledge, of the effect of instantaneous PRI on giving. We conduct two large-scale online experiments, one on Amazon Mturk and one, as a robustness test, on Prolific. In the primary experiment, participants are randomly assigned to either a baseline with no PRI; a treatment in which subjects receive a static PRI thumbs up emoji (a recognized gesture of approval); a treatment in which subjects receive a dynamic PRI thumbs up emoji (the emoji varies directly in size with the size of the donation); and two other controls. Consistent with much of the findings on after-the-fact positive reinforcement, we find that donation behavior in the instantaneous dynamic PRI treatment does not differ significantly from the baseline. Surprisingly, we find that static PRI results in significantly less being donated. Our second experiment confirms our null result finding that instantaneous PRI does not significantly increase giving. These results suggest that organizations and policymakers should be hesitant to use instantaneous PRI, as it ranges from null to negative effects.

Bibliographic Details

Ben Grodeck; Philip J. Grossman

Elsevier BV

Positive reinforcement; Charitable giving; Experiment; Fundraising

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