The Impact of Social Pressure on Charitable Giving in the United States

Last registered on November 18, 2016
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
The Impact of Social Pressure on Charitable Giving in the United States
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001675
Initial registration date
November 18, 2016

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
November 18, 2016, 11:46 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
North America

Primary Investigator

Name
Stefano DellaVigna
Affiliation
UC Berkeley
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
John A. List
PI Affiliation
University of Chicago
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Ulrike Malmendier
PI Affiliation
University of California, Berkeley
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2008-04-27
End date
2010-12-31
Keywords
Welfare
Additional Keywords
Generosity, Charitable giving, Altruism, Social pressure, Gender
JEL code(s)
C93, D03, H41
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Every year, 90% of Americans give money to charities. Is such generosity
necessarily welfare enhancing for the giver? We present a theoretical framework that distinguishes two types of motivation: individuals like to give, for example, due to altruism or warm glow, and individuals would rather not give but dislike saying no, for example, due to social pressure. We design a door-to-door fundraiser in which some households are informed about the exact time of solicitation with a flyer on their doorknobs. Thus, they can seek or avoid the fund-raiser. We find that the flyer reduces the share of households opening the door by 9% to 25% and, if the flyer allows checking a Do Not Disturb box, reduces giving by 28% to 42%. The latter decrease is concentrated among donations smaller than $10. These findings suggest that social pressure is an important determinant of door-to-door giving. Combining data from this and a complementary field experiment, we structurally estimate the model. The estimated social pressure cost of saying no to a solicitor is $3.80 for an in-state charity and $1.40 for an out-of-state charity. Our welfare calculations suggest that our door-to-door fund-raising campaigns on average lower the utility of the potential donors.

A secondary analysis of the data, by DellaVigna, List, Malmendier and Rao (2013) uses the door-to-door fund-raising campaign and survey to estimate the distribution of social preferences by gender. This study uncovers an important relationship between gender and giving patterns: there are gender differences in social preferences, but it is important to go beyond considering differences in means - important gender differences may be at the margin. This leads women to give more in certain situations, but not in others, and also to be more sensitive to social cues. Differentiating by gender reveals a novel explanation for seemingly contradictory findings in previous literature.
External Link(s)
J-PAL Evaluation Summary

Registration Citation

Citation
DellaVigna, Stefano, John A. List and Ulrike Malmendier. 2016. "The Impact of Social Pressure on Charitable Giving in the United States." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1675-1.0
Former Citation
DellaVigna, Stefano, John A. List and Ulrike Malmendier. 2016. "The Impact of Social Pressure on Charitable Giving in the United States." AEA RCT Registry. November 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1675/history/11894
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
No flyer treatment: Solicitors knock on the door and, if they reach a person, they inform the household about the charity, ask if they are willing to make a donation, and if they receive a gift leave a receipt.

Flyer treatment: The solicitor's script is identical to the no-flyer, but in addition a different solicitor leaves a flyer on the doorknob on the day before the solicitation. The professionally prepared flyer indicates the time of the upcoming fund-raising (or survey) visit within a one-hour time interval.

Opt-out treatment: The flyer has a box "Check this box if you do not want to be disturbed." If the solicitors find the box checked, they do not knock on the door.

Survey treatment: The solicitor inquires whether the household member is willing to respond to survey questions about charitable giving. The solicitor informs the household member about the duration of the survey (5 or 10 minutes) and about the payment for completing the survey, if any ($10, $5, or none).
Intervention Start Date
2008-04-27
Intervention End Date
2009-11-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Answering the door, Checking the opt-out box, Amount of giving, Unconditional giving, Conditional giving
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Researchers dissect the outcomes to test the effects of altruism versus social pressure on charitable giving.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Between April and October 2008, researchers approached 7,668 households in the towns surrounding Chicago. A crucial aspect of the experimental design was to allow individuals to either seek or avoid the solicitor. In the first treatment, a flyer on the doorknob notifies households one day in advance about the one-hour time interval in which a solicitor will arrive at their homes the next day. In the second treatment, opt-out, the flyer also includes a box to be checked if the household does not want to be disturbed. These two conditions are compared to a baseline treatment, wherein solicitors approach households in the usual manner without a flyer. Treatment effects are estimated for both the share of households that open the door and the share that give. This design allows for a simple test of (pure or impure) altruism versus social pressure in door-to-door giving.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomized using Microsoft Excel.
Randomization Unit
Street level
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Each solicitor planned to visit an assigned a list of around 25 households per hour on a given street, for a daily workload of either 4 hours or 6 hours.
Sample size: planned number of observations
21,518 households.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Survey treatment (2008): 2,018 households.
Survey treatment (2009): 10,594 households.
No-flyer treatment: 3,562 households.
Flyer treatment: 3,117 households.
Opt-out treatment: 2,227 households.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Chicago
IRB Approval Date
Details not available
IRB Approval Number
Details not available
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
November 30, 2009, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
November 30, 2009, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
19,568 households.
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Survey treatment (2008): 1,865 households. Survey treatment (2009): 10,035 households. No-flyer treatment: 3,166 households. Flyer treatment: 3,432 households. Opt-out treatment: 1,070 households.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes
Public Data URL
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/index.html

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving
Citation
DellaVigna, Stefano, John List, and Ulrike Malmendier. 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving." Quarterly Journal of Economics 127(1): 1-56.
URL
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~sdellavi/wp/CharityQJEFeb12.pdf
Abstract
The Importance of Being Marginal: Gender Differences in Generosity
Citation
DellaVigna, Stefano, John List, Ulrike Malmendier and Gautam Rao. 2013. "The Importance of Being Marginal: Gender Differences in Generosity." American Economic Review 103(3): 586-90.
URL
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/4089%20Gender%20Differences%20Generosity%20AER2013.pdf

Reports & Other Materials