Unobserved Altruism: How Social- and Self-Signaling Motivations Shape Willingness to Donate

Although public recognition is usually thought to increase donations, we show that an audience sometimes suppresses giving. This occurs because consumers prefer to give when they can interpret their choice as a genuine signal of altruism. However, when reputational benefits of giving are salient, that self-signal is diluted, and donation likelihood decreases.



Citation:

Jennifer Savary and Kelly Goldsmith (2018) ,"Unobserved Altruism: How Social- and Self-Signaling Motivations Shape Willingness to Donate", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46, eds. Andrew Gershoff, Robert Kozinets, and Tiffany White, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 270-302.

Authors

Jennifer Savary, University of Arizona, USA
Kelly Goldsmith, Vanderbilt University, USA



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46 | 2018



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