Intervention (Hidden)
STEP 1: Recruitment
Participants will be recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) using Cloud Research. A brief description of the task and compensation offered will be provided to the MTurk Worker. If a Worker chooses to participate, they will accept the task and click on the survey link.
STEP 2: Informed Consent
Participants who accept the task on MTurk will be directed to a survey experiment implemented using Qualtrics. A preview of this survey is available here:
https://skidmore.qualtrics.com/jfe/preview/SV_6zinJ9qTcIhnhH0?Q_CHL=preview&Q_SurveyVersionID=current
Participants will first encounter the informed consent document [SEE ATTACHED]. Participants who would like to proceed with the study will choose the appropriate option at the bottom of the screen. Those who do not wish to participate can choose to exit the study at this time. Upon exit, the MTurk Workers are reminded that they will not receive compensation and are asked to please return the assignment (referred to in MTurk as a Human Intelligence Task (HIT)).
STEP 3: Instructions (Note that due to randomization, approximately half of the participants will receive STEP 7 prior to this step.)
Participants who provide consent receive a set of instructions with example price lists that demonstrate the choices they will be asked to make in the study. These directions are followed by a few questions designed to check attention and understanding. Participants will need to answer at least two of these basic comprehension questions correctly in order to move forward in the study. Participants who answer fewer than two of these questions correctly will be removed from the study in accordance with MTurk guidelines that allow for work to be rejected of workers do not follow directions and properly perform the duties of the task.
STEP 4: Binary Choice Tasks – Baseline Price Lists
Self-Charity Equivalence
The first price list in the study is designed to determine our participants’ self-charity equivalence, Pc. This is the monetary value at which they are willing to give up a $5 payment for themselves for a donation of $Pc to the charitable organization (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital). For each of the 16 items in the price list, participants are asked to choose between two options: a payoff for themselves and a payoff for a charity. There are 16 items in the choice set. Option A of each item provides a $5 payoff to the participant and Option B provides a payoff to the charity. Although the $5 payoff remains constant, the payoff to the charity increases from $0 to $15 in increments of $1.
STEP 5: Binary Choice Tasks – Decisions Under Risk
The price lists in this section assess participants’ risk preferences and seek to determine whether participants treat risk differently when making decisions for themselves, decisions for the charity, or making tradeoffs between payoffs for themselves and payoffs for charity.
Self-Lottery
In each list in this set, our participants will choose between a lottery payoff to themselves and a certain payoff for themselves. There are 21 items in these lists. Option A is a lottery with a $5 payoff. Option B is a certain payoff that increases from $0 to $5 in $0.25 increments. Participants complete three price lists within this self-lottery context. The price lists differ only in the probability, p, that the lottery pays out. The probability, p, randomly takes on two of three values, 0.998, 0.99, or 0.90. This same set of randomly-chosen probabilities is used throughout the remainder of the study. In addition, all participants complete a price list with p = 0.50.
In addition to this set of price lists, we include an additional choice (S-LS-U). Participants are asked to choose between a payoff to themselves based upon their switch-point in the self-lottery and a lottery that pays $6 to the participant with two random probabilities, corresponding to the probabilities from the self-lottery price lists of p = 0.998, 0.99, or 0.90 and to an undeserving charity (i.e., a country club) with (1-p) = 0.002, 0.01, or 0.10 respectively. This question is used to assess whether the participant is willing to overlook the potential for the country club to receive a payoff when the participant is the beneficiary.
Charity-Lottery
This set of lists is similar to the set used in the self-lottery exercise, however, the payoffs are calibrated using P_C. Option A is a lottery with a $P_C payoff and Option B is a certain payoff that increases from $0 to $P_C in $PC / 20 increments. Again, there are four price lists in this set where p takes on two random values of 0.90, 0.99, or 0.998, along with p = 0.50, as implemented in the self-lottery activity.
This set of price lists is followed by a question in which participants must choose between a certain payoff to the charity based upon their switch-point in the charity lottery price list and a lottery that pays $Pc * 1.2 to the charity with two random probabilities of 0.998, 0.99, or 0.90 or to the country club with corresponding probabilities of 0.002, 0.01, 0.10 respectively as in the charity-lottery and self-lottery price lists.
Self-Charity-Lottery
In this set of price lists (two p = {0.998, 0.99, 0.90, along with p = 0.50}), participants choose between a certain payoff for themselves and a lottery for the charity. Option A is a lottery in which the charity receives $P_C with probability, p. Option B is a certain payoff to the participant that increases from $0 to $5 in $0.25 increments.
These price lists are followed by an additional choice that asks the participant to decide between a payoff to themselves based upon their switch-point in the self-charity lottery exercise and a lottery for the charity. In this lottery, the charity will receive $Pc * 1.2 with two random probabilities from the previous price lists, p = 0.998, 0.99, or 0.90, but there is a 0.002, 0.01, or 0.10 probability that the money will instead go to the undeserving charity.
Charity-Self-Lottery
This set of price lists (again, two p = {0.998, 0.99, 0.90, along with p = 0.50}), asks participants to choose between a lottery for themselves and a certain payoff to the charity. In Option A, the lottery pays out $5 to the participant with probability, p. In Option B, the payoff to the charity increases from $0 to $P_C.
This set of price lists is followed by a choice between a certain payoff for the charity based upon the switch-point in the charity-self lottery and a lottery in which the participant receives $6 with two probabilities as in the previous price list, 0.998, 0.99, or 0.90, but with probability 0.002, 0.01, or 0.10 the money instead goes to the country club.
STEP 6: Information Treatment Tasks
Next, participants are informed again about the amount of their comprehension check bonus. They are then asked how much of this bonus they would like to donate to Stand Up for Kids. This donation ask is presented along with one of four information treatments (randomly assigned): (1) basic information only, (2) general impact information, (3) identifiable victim impact, and (4) warm glow impact.
No Impact
These participants will receive only a basic description of the charity:
Stand Up for Kids is a national non-profit organization dedicated to ending the cycle of youth homelessness. Since 1990, they have cared for homeless and at-risk youth by transitioning them from crisis to connection. They give youth a sense of safety, hope, and belonging through housing support, mentoring, drop-in centers, and street outreach.
General Impact
These participants will receive the basic description of the charity (above) as well as additional information about the financial behavior of the organization:
Stand Up for Kids promises that 90% of your financial donation goes directly to assisting homeless and street kids. This promise is backed up by their financial statements, with 90% of their total expenses, almost $1,600,000, being spent on programs and fundraising to directly help homeless youths across the country.
Identifiable Victim
These participants will receive the basic description of the charity as well as additional information about how their donation will help a specific individual:
Stand Up for Kids supports youths like Cody. Cody entered the foster system at four years old. After suffering abuse at the hands of his foster family, Cody ended up on the streets. Stand Up for Kids made Cody feel wanted and loved. They helped him to find shelter and worked with him to find a job. Cody has now been accepted into a Job Corp program. Soon he will have his diploma, his driver’s license, and a marketable trade.
Warm Glow
These participants will receive the basic description of the charity as well as information about how their donation will help make them feel like a better person for helping others:
It feels good to make a difference in the life of a child. Feed your soul with a gift to Stand Up for Kids.
STEP 7: Survey of Past Behaviors, Current Mood, Attitudes, and Beliefs
Next, participants receive a series of questions regarding mood, past previous involvement in charitable giving (as both donor and recipient), and general attitudes towards charitable giving. They will also be asked questions that gauge how they perceive people who engage in various types of charitable or volunteer behavior, report their perceptions regarding fraud in charitable organizations and the receipt of welfare benefits. Participants will also respond to a series of questions, taken from Kahneman & Tversky (1979), to determine participants’ probabilistic reasoning.
STEP 8: Policy Support
After completing the demographic questions, participants will receive two questions judging their support for two recently debated government policies, universal basic income, and student loan cancellation. Participants will read a short description of the policy and then rate their support on a scale of 0 to 10, from do not support at all to fully support.