Impact of Emotional Stimulation on Giving Motivations

Last registered on December 07, 2023
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact of Emotional Stimulation on Giving Motivations
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012272
Initial registration date
October 10, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 17, 2023, 11:47 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
December 07, 2023, 4:53 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
Texas

Primary Investigator

Name
Ruixin Jia
Affiliation
Human Behavior Lab Texas A&M University
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Piruz Saboury
PI Affiliation
University of Houston
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Nishita Sinha
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Marco Palma
PI Affiliation
Texas A&M University
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-05-01
End date
2024-05-31
Keywords
Behavior, Other
Additional Keywords
Charitable giving
JEL code(s)
D64, L31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Charities use emotional stimulation including pictures and videos to induce charitable giving. While such methods have been known to be useful in inducing more giving, the question of what type of giving motive(s) is engaged or strengthened through emotional stimulation has not received much attention. Recent literature separates giving motives into altruism and warm-glow (Andreoni, 1989&1990). Altruists are concerned about the provision of a public good, regardless of the donation source, be it is from self or other source, such as a grant or taxation. However, warm-glow is a private benefit and moral pleasure from the act of giving. Thus, once a charity receives a third-party donation, pure altruists will reduce private donations while those motivated solely by warm-glow will keep their private giving unchanged.
In this study, we aim to disentangle the effect of emotional stimulation via videos on altruistic and warm glow motives for giving. Our goal is to understand the type of giving motive that emotional stimulations appeal to and strengthen. In our experimental design, subjects, before being asked to make donation decisions, are randomly assigned to one of the three video treatments: a neutral video, a recipient-focused emotional video, and a donor-focused emotional video. Thereafter, subjects make three donation decisions in random order: 1) a simple ask from a given endowment, 2) an ask with the same endowment and a third-party gift to the charity, 3) an ask with a lower endowment and a third-party gift to the charity. We will compare individuals’ giving and their extent of crowd-out of third-party gift across the video treatments to understand the effect of emotional stimulation on altruistic and warm glow motives.
Therefore, we expect to observe more warm-glow giving and lower levels of third-party gift crowd-out after emotional stimulation. We also hypothesize that a donor-focused video will result in a larger shift towards warm glow motives, while a recipient-focused video will strengthen pure altruistic motives.

References:
Andreoni, James. 1989. “Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equiv- alence.” Journal of Political Economy 97 (6): 1447–58.
Andreoni, James. 1990. “Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving.” Economic Journal 100 (401): 464–77.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Jia, Ruixin et al. 2023. "Impact of Emotional Stimulation on Giving Motivations ." AEA RCT Registry. December 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12272-2.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2023-05-01
Intervention End Date
2024-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
We expect to observe more warm-glow giving and lower levels of third-party gift crowd-out after emotional stimulation. We also hypothesize that a donor-focused video will result in a larger shift towards warm glow motives, while a recipient-focused video will strengthen pure altruistic motives.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Every subject is randomly assigned to watch one of three types of videos: 1) neutral, 2) recipient-focus and 3) donor-focus videos and then goes through three charitable giving tasks to allocate funds from an endowment between self and the charity under different scenarios. In the first scenario subjects are endowed with 10 tokens and they are asked to allocate them between themselves and the charity, Feed the Children. In the second scenario, subjects are still endowed with 10 tokens but an outside grant of 5 tokens is also given to the charity. In the third scenario, the subject is endowed with 5 tokens instead and an outside grant of 5 tokens is also given to the charity, which simulates the donation in the taxation environment. The difference between scenario 2 and scenario 1 measures pure warm-glow and the difference between scenario 3 and scenario 1 measures pure altruism.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done by a computer
Randomization Unit
The 3 video treatments are randomized between subject, but all 3 donation scenarios are given to all subjects with randomized order (within subjects).
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Individual
Sample size: planned number of observations
1200 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
400 subjects in neutral video treatment, 400 subjects in recipient-focus video treatment and 400 donor-focus video treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2023-05-02
IRB Approval Number
IRB2023-0507M
Analysis Plan