Empathy or Escape? Examining Alternative Mechanisms Underlying Responses to Disgust-Evoking Charity Appeals Over Time

Abstract Disgust-evoking imagery is often used in charity advertising. Although research suggests disgust has negative effects on prosocial behavior, few studies examine charity appeals. The current two-factor, between-participants experiment compared immediate and delayed responses to disgust versus nondisgust appeals. Immediately following exposure, disgust reduced self-reported message attention and empathy. Yet participants exposed to disgust anticipated greater difficulty forgetting the message, which motivated immediate giving, and they reported thinking about the message more following exposure, which motivated delayed giving. Empathy remained relatively stable under disgust, exceeding the comparison condition over time. Results suggest a nuanced process whereby disgust affects charitable behavior.