{"title":"Merely increasing bids increases charitable donation.","authors":"Erika Weisz, Mina Cikara","doi":"10.1037/xap0000531","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Amid a sea of requests for aid, what factors affect decisions to donate? Here, we investigate the efficacy of a manipulation of choice architecture to affect giving: increasing the number of bids available to donors to increase how much they give. Across six experiments (<i>N</i> = 6,153), participants recruited online responded to single- or multiple-bid donation requests. Viewing multiple bids for aid increased both intention to donate and actual donation without decreasing the proportion of people who donated at all. We rule out previously documented heuristics (i.e., 1/<i>n</i>, fairness), anchoring, and agency as explanations for our effect. Finally, we replicate our effect in a natural experiment (<i>N</i> = 10,000 donors): Presenting donors, giving their own money, with multiple bids increased the average donation by $8.77 (a 19.7% increase). Our findings have theoretical implications for invigorating prosocial behavior and offer practical suggestions for how charitable organizations can better engineer solicitations for aid. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48003,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied","volume":" ","pages":"126-138"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Experimental Psychology-Applied","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000531","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/2/17 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, APPLIED","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Amid a sea of requests for aid, what factors affect decisions to donate? Here, we investigate the efficacy of a manipulation of choice architecture to affect giving: increasing the number of bids available to donors to increase how much they give. Across six experiments (N = 6,153), participants recruited online responded to single- or multiple-bid donation requests. Viewing multiple bids for aid increased both intention to donate and actual donation without decreasing the proportion of people who donated at all. We rule out previously documented heuristics (i.e., 1/n, fairness), anchoring, and agency as explanations for our effect. Finally, we replicate our effect in a natural experiment (N = 10,000 donors): Presenting donors, giving their own money, with multiple bids increased the average donation by $8.77 (a 19.7% increase). Our findings have theoretical implications for invigorating prosocial behavior and offer practical suggestions for how charitable organizations can better engineer solicitations for aid. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍：
The mission of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied® is to publish original empirical investigations in experimental psychology that bridge practically oriented problems and psychological theory. The journal also publishes research aimed at developing and testing of models of cognitive processing or behavior in applied situations, including laboratory and field settings. Occasionally, review articles are considered for publication if they contribute significantly to important topics within applied experimental psychology. Areas of interest include applications of perception, attention, memory, decision making, reasoning, information processing, problem solving, learning, and skill acquisition.
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