Publications
Publications
- February 2018
- Journal of Public Economics
The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask
By: Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie
Abstract
Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use uncertainty to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper, we examine whether a reluctance to give may arise even when such explicit flexibility is absent. We investigate whether merely alerting individuals to an upcoming prosocial ask—that is neither avoided nor occurs in an environment with flexibility—results in reduced prosocial behavior. That is, we investigate whether individuals use time to quickly find ways to decline prosocial asks and thus whether surprising individuals with prosocial asks increases compliance. Results from a field study and complementary online studies provide a clear answer: yes.
Keywords
Charitable Giving; Prosocial Behavior; Self-serving Biases; Excuses; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior
Citation
Exley, Christine L., and Ragan Petrie. "The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask." Journal of Public Economics 158 (February 2018): 152–167.