All for one or one for all? How power states affect consumer giving across charities

Abstract

Though ample research on consumer giving exists, it has typically focused on factors affecting donation depth, or how much a consumer donates to one charity. Much less research has focused on factors affecting donation breadth, or how a consumer distributes donations across multiple charities. To address this void, the current research offers eight studies examining how donation breadth may be affected by the level of power consumers experience. A core finding is that low- (vs. high-) power states lead to greater donation breadth. This effect arises through a novel mechanism by which low- (vs. high-) power states promote more refined categorizations that help consumers discern cross-charity differences to increase donation breadth. Convergent evidence of this categorization-based mechanism is provided by causal chain, measurement-based, and moderation approaches. The impact of this research on the prosocial behavior and consumer power literature is discussed, as are implications for organizations seeking to strategically manage consumer giving in the context of multiple charities.