Selective recognition: how to recognize donors to increase charitable giving.
Samek, Anya ; Sheremeta, Roman M.
Selective recognition: how to recognize donors to increase charitable giving.
I. INTRODUCTION
Positive recognition hits long been a trusted way of raising money
on college campuses, where buildings, benches, and even the insides of
library books bear the names of donors. But in an effort to spur gifts
among young soon-to-be alumni, students at two Ivy League institutions
are trying a different approach: publicizing the names of seniors who
don't contribute to their class. (Chronicle of Higher Education)
(1)
The desire for social approval is one of the reasons why
individuals act more generously when their generosity is viewable by
others (Hollander 1990). Studies have shown that recognizing donors by
revealing their identity increases contributions to public goods and
donations to charities. (2) However, very little is known about what
kind of recognition is more effective in the field. For example, a
charity may decide to recognize all donors by printing their names in
newsletters. Alternatively, the charity may choose to recognize only the
highest donors by naming buildings after them or posting their names on
the walls. In our opening example, two Ivy League universities chose yet
another approach by publicizing the names of seniors who did not
contribute to their class, thus attempting to shame the noncontributors
into giving. Although one can provide a number of arguments for or
against using each of these approaches in practice, which approach is
better at increasing charitable donations is an open empirical question.
We conducted a framed field experiment to investigate the impact of
different recognition schemes on donations to a charity. Over 200
individuals recruited from the community participated in small groups of
five to eight individuals and had an opportunity to donate part of their
$10 experiment earnings to the American Red Cross. We used a
between-subjects design such that each individual was randomly assigned
to participate in only one treatment, making one donation decision. In
the no recognition treatment, only donation amounts were displayed to
the group at the end of the experiment. In the full recognition
treatment, we also publicized all individuals' names next to their
donations. In the positive recognition treatment, we publicized only the
names of the highest donors next to their donations. In the negative
recognition treatment, we publicized the names of the lowest donors
(including publicizing those who gave $0).
We found that all forms of recognition have a positive impact on
increasing donations relative to the baseline treatment, with selective
recognition (both positive and negative) having the strongest and
significant effect. In addition, we found that the underlying mechanisms
for why positive and negative recognition are effective are very
different. Negative recognition encourages higher donations through
discouraging donations lower than $5, while positive recognition
encourages maximum donations of $10.
Our findings have practical implications. For example, we show that
recognizing the highest or the lowest donors by revealing their
identities is the most effective recognition method. We argue that the
main reason for this is that selective recognition creates
tournament-like incentives, encouraging donors to seek a "positive
prize" of prestige and avoid a "negative prize" of shame.
Therefore, when recognizing donors or when publishing annual reports,
practitioners may benefit from utilizing tournament-like incentives by
recognizing their top contributors, and in some instances (as in the
case with our opening example) shaming noncontributors. However,
practitioners should be careful when choosing negative incentives (such
as shaming noncontributors), because they also face the first-order
problem of attracting and retaining donors. Given the opportunity of
free entry and exit, individuals may simply avoid contributing to
communal and charity groups that identify the lowest contributors.
In what follows, Section II reviews the related literature. Section
III describes the experimental design. Section IV summarizes the
results, and Section V provides a discussion and conclusion.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Related work has proposed different motivations for giving to
charities. Behavioral arguments for why individuals contribute positive
amounts to charities and public goods include pure altruism (Bergstrom,
Blume, and Varian 1986; Harbaugh, Mayr, and Burghart 2007), "warm
glow" (Andreoni 1989, 1990; Gneezy, Keenan, and Gneezy 2014), and
inequality aversion (Fehr and Schmidt 1999; Rabin 1993). (3)
Empirical evidence that individuals give more when they are
recognized suggests a role for recognition as an additional reason for
giving (Andreoni and Bernheim 2009; Andreoni and Petrie 2004; Ariely,
Bracha, and Meier 2009; Karl an and McConnell 2014; Samek and Sheremeta
2014; Soetevent 2005). Andreoni and Petrie (2004), for example, show
that publicly identifying participants and their choices in a laboratory
public goods experiment significantly increases contributions to the
public good. Similarly, Andreoni and Bernheim (2009) provide
experimental evidence that people like to be perceived as fair, which
motivates them to act more pro-socially in order to enhance their social
image. Soetevent (2005) further demonstrates that such concerns for
social image can significantly increase contributions to charities in
the field.
Theoretically, Benabou and Tirole (2006) have incorporated social
image into an individual's utility function. One prediction of
their model is that when recognition is introduced, an effort to
preserve a high social image adds to the motivation to give to charity.
In a different model, Vesterlund (2003) has shown that recognizing
donors could be beneficial to the charity because publicly visible
donations may send information to other potential donors. Therefore,
both models make compelling theoretical arguments for recognizing
donors.
While there is agreement among researchers that recognizing donors
by revealing their identities is important for increasing contributions
to public goods and donations to charities, very little is known about
which kind of recognition is more effective in the field. For example,
one could recognize all donors (Andreoni and Petrie 2004), or
selectively recognize only the highest or the lowest donors (Samek and
Sheremeta 2014). On the one hand, full recognition incorporates both
positive and negative recognition, since recognizing all donors implies
also recognizing the highest and the lowest donors. On the other hand,
recognizing only the highest or only the lowest donors singles them out
and makes their social identities more salient. This singling out
amplifies the desire to seek prestige by the highest donors (Harbaugh
1998; Hollander 1990) and the desire to avoid shame by the lowest donors
(Frank 1988; Gilbert 1998; Ketelaar 2004). In a sense, singling out
creates tournament-like incentives, encouraging donors to seek a
"positive prize" of prestige and avoid a "negative
prize" of shame. (4) Such incentives should strengthen the effects
of prestige under positive recognition and shame under negative
recognition, thus generating higher donations than full recognition.
Ultimately, this is an empirical question that we address with our
experiment.
III. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
In the Harrison and List (2004) taxonomy, our experiment is a
"framed field experiment." The experiment involved 205
individuals who were recruited from families participating in an early
childhood study in a suburb of Chicago. (5) Upon arriving to the
experiment, participants in groups of five to eight individuals had the
opportunity to donate part of their endowment to the American Red Cross.
Individuals were assigned to a session date and time in advance without
knowing which treatment would be carried out during that session; as
such, we expect balance across treatment groups. Group size varied based
on how many participants arrived to each session. Each group
participated in a separate session and room.
At the beginning of the session, all participants identified
themselves by writing their first and last name on a nametag that was
displayed to the others at all times. Participants sat in a circle
facing each other and were given a walled lapboard (that we call a
"privacy screen") so that all decisions could be made in
private. Participants were instructed not to communicate with one
another. Participants were given the instructions, which included a
description of the American Red Cross (see Appendix S1, Supporting
Information). The researcher also handed out a short quiz on
understanding and went over the responses with the participants.
Each participant earned $10 for coming to the experiment, which was
announced in advance and distributed at the end of the experiment.
Participants received an additional endowment of $10 (ten $1 bills) to
use in the experiment. Participants placed the amount that they wanted
to give to the Red Cross in one envelope (labeled "give") and
the amount that they wanted to keep in the other envelope (labeled
"keep"). This decision was made quietly and in private. The
researcher collected the "give" envelopes and tallied the
totals at the back of the room. The donation decision was only made
once.
At the end of the decision, all individual donations (including $0
donations) were displayed on the board at the front of the room sorted
from the largest to the smallest. We conducted four treatments using a
between-subjects design in which we experimentally manipulated the
recognition information available to participants at the end of the
experiment (see Table 1). In the no recognition treatment, no additional
information was available about the amounts that each person gave. In
the full recognition treatment, we told participants prior to their
decision that the first and the last name of each group member would be
written next to each donation amount at the end. In the positive
recognition treatment, participants learned that the first and the last
name of the two highest donors would be displayed, but that the
remaining participants would not be recognized. Finally, in the negative
recognition treatment, participants learned that the first and the last
name of the two lowest donors (including $0) would be displayed, and the
other participants would not be recognized. In case of ties, the order
of names was randomly determined.
At the end of the experiment, participants responded to a short
questionnaire, which included basic demographic questions as well as
questions about charitable giving habits, tendency to care about what
others think, and one's perceived social status. The experiment
lasted approximately 30 minutes. The researchers sent all the donated
money to the Red Cross via web payment within a week following the
experiment, and participants were instructed that they could receive a
confirmation email if they wished.
IV. RESULTS
A. Average Donations
Figure 1 summarizes the average donations by treatment. In the
positive recognition treatment, the average donation is $6.93, followed
by $6.29 in the negative recognition treatment, then by $6.02 in the
full recognition treatment, and finally by $5.26 in the no recognition
treatment. Even in the baseline no recognition treatment, individuals on
average give more than 50% of their available earnings to the Red Cross.
Compared to the real donation experiment with university students of
Eckel and Grossman (1996), individuals in our experiment gave more. A
major difference in our experiment is that even in the baseline
treatment, all donation amounts are immediately revealed, while in Eckel
and Grossman's experiment, no donation amounts are revealed and the
experiment was double blind. In addition. Carpenter. Connolly, and Myers
(2008) find that community members (as in our experiment) tend to give
more than students to charity.
When comparing the four treatments, we find that all forms of
recognition increase donations relative to the baseline treatment, and
recognizing only the highest or only the lowest donors has the strongest
and significant effect. Compared to no recognition, individuals on
average donate $1.67 more when positive recognition is introduced
(Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test, p value = .01) and donate $1.03 more when
negative recognition is introduced (Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test, p value
= .05). Individuals also donate $0.76 more in full recognition relative
to no recognition; however, this is not significant at the conventional
level (Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney test, p value = .12). We do not find any
significant differences between the positive recognition, negative
recognition and full recognition treatments (all p values > .20).
When separating our data by small group sizes (i.e.. five or six
individuals within a group) and large group sizes (i.e., seven or eight
individuals within a group), we find exactly the same directional
effects of the different treatments, with all forms of recognition
increasing donations relative to the baseline treatment. It appears that
the differences between treatments are more pronounced in smaller
groups, but we do not have enough data to find statistically significant
differences in treatment effect by group size.
B. Distribution of Donations
Figure 2 displays the cumulative distribution of donations by
treatment. It is apparent that the cumulative distribution of donations
in the positive recognition treatment first-order stochastically
dominates the no recognition treatment (two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test, p value = .06). However, there are no statistically significant
differences between the full recognition and no recognition treatment
(two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, p value =. 14), and between the
negative recognition and no recognition treatment (two-sample
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, p value = .12). Similarly, there are no
significant differences between the positive recognition, negative
recognition, and full recognition treatments (all p values > .20).
To look more closely at the distribution of donations, Figure 3
displays the histogram of donations across four treatments. Several
interesting patterns emerge. First, we see anchor points at a gift of $5
(50% of the endowment, and 25% of total earnings) and $10 (100% of the
endowment, and 50% of total earnings). Second, these anchor points
become stronger when recognition is introduced. Under no recognition,
40% of participants donate less than $5, 28% donate exactly $5, and 25%
donate exactly $10. Full recognition significantly reduces donations
less than $5 (from 40% to 20%, Fisher's exact test, p value = .02)
and increases (although not significantly) donations of $5 (from 28% to
41%, Fisher's exact test, p value =. 16). Similarly, negative
recognition significantly reduces donations less than $5 (from 40% to
19%, Fisher's exact test, p value = .02) and increases (although
not significantly) donations of $5 (from 28% to 38%, Fisher's exact
test, p value = .30). However, positive recognition does not
significantly reduce donations less than $5 (from 40% to 24%,
Fisher's exact test, p value = .14), but it significantly increases
maximum donations of $10 (from 25% to 49%, Fisher's exact test, p
value = .01).
In summary, we find that the underlying mechanisms of why different
types of recognitions are effective are different. Negative recognition
and full recognition encourage higher donations through discouraging
donations lower than $5, while positive recognition encourages maximum
donations of $10.
V. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
We conducted a framed field experiment to investigate how
recognition impacts charity donations. We varied recognition in four
separate treatments and found that all forms of recognition have a
positive impact on increasing donations relative to the baseline
treatment, with positive recognition and negative recognition having the
strongest and significant effect.
A potential mechanism for why positive and negative recognitions
are effective at increasing charitable donations is that selective
recognition (both positive and negative) creates tournament-like
incentives. Recognizing the highest donors activates the desire to seek
prestige (a "positive prize") from being a high donor, thus
increasing the proportion of donors who contribute the full amount of
their income. Recognizing the lowest donors activates the desire to
avoid shame (a "negative prize") from being a low donor, thus
decreasing the proportion of donors who do not contribute and increasing
the proportion of donors who contribute half of their income. Compared
to full recognition, recognizing only the highest or only the lowest
donors singles these donors out and makes their social identities more
salient, amplifying prestige or shame (since all attention is focused
only on the two donors). Therefore, while all forms of recognition
positively impact charitable donations, positive and negative
recognition have the strongest effect. (6)
It has been a commonly held belief, grounded in theoretical
research (Benabou and Tirole 2006; Vesterlund 2003) and laboratory
experimentation (Andreoni and Petrie 2004; Rege and Telle 2004), that
positive recognition matters. Our study provides further evidence that
positive recognition is effective in increasing charitable donations in
the field. (7) However, our results also point out the effectiveness of
negative recognition. In our opening example, we quoted a story from the
Chronicle of Higher Education in which two Ivy League universities
attempted to increase donation amounts from their soon-to-be alumni by
"publicizing the names of seniors who don't contribute to
their class." This may appear like a controversial strategy (and
indeed it generated many debates after the article was published);
however, the bottom line is that negative recognition also works.
Because shame appears to be a powerful motivator to encourage giving,
one may ask the question: why don't all social groups, charity
organizations, and online communities practice displaying the lowest
contributors? While these institutions face the problem of increasing
contributions, they also face the first-order problem of attracting and
retaining contributors. Given the opportunity of free entry and exit,
individuals may simply avoid contributing to communal and charity groups
that identify the lowest contributors. Therefore, in the long run a
negative recognition policy may backfire. (8) We see the long-term
effects of recognition as a fruitful avenue for future research.
doi: 10.1111/ecin.12448
ANYA SAMEK and ROMAN M. SHEREMETA *
* We thank three anonymous referees and the Editor of this journal
for their valuable suggestions. We also want to thank Tristin Ganter,
Phuong Ta, and Amanda Chuan for valuable research assistance. We have
benefited from helpful comments of Sera Linardi, John List, Lise
Vesterlund, and participants at the Science of Philanthropy Initiative
Conference. Finally, we wish to thank the John Templeton Foundation
through the Science of Philanthropy Initiative for research funding. Any
remaining errors are ours.
Samek: Assistant Professor, Center for Economic and Social Research
& Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, CA 90089. Phone 773-609-0425, Fax 213-821-2716, E-mail
anyasamek@gmail.com
Sheremeta: Assistant Professor, Weatherhead School of Management,
Case Western Reserve University. Cleveland. OH 44106; Economic Science
Institute, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866. Phone 216-368-4271, Fax
216-368-5039, E-mail rshereme@gmail.com
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online
version of this article:
Appendix S1. Instructions
(1.) From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/Students-at-2-Ivy-League/125056/.
(2.) Studies showing the positive effect of recognition include
Andreoni and Petrie (2004). Rege and Telle (2004), Soetevent (2005),
Karlan and McConnell (2014), Jones and Linardi (2014), and Samek and
Sheremeta (2014). Social recognition has also been found effective in
voter turnout (Gerber. Green, and Larimer 2008). blood donation
(Lacetera and Macis 2010), consumption of private goods (Clingingsmith
and Sheremeta 2016). and tournaments (Mago, Samek. and Sheremeta 2016).
(3.) It is also possible that individuals incur a utility loss by
contributing below the socially acceptable amount, whereby the
acceptable amount can be signaled by the fundraiser through recommended
amounts (Edwards and List 2014) or through giving information about a
past amount given by a previous donor (Croson and Shang 2008; Shang and
Croson 2009).
(4.) It is well documented that tournament-like incentives are
powerful at motivating individuals (Dechenaux, Kovenock, and Sheremeta
2015). Moreover, such incentives are even more powerful than predicted
by the standard game theory (Sheremeta 2013, 2015. 2016).
(5.) Recruitment for the study was done through the "Living
Lab" at the Chicago Heights Early Childhood Center in Chicago
Heights, IL. Over 2,000 subjects make up this pool of households from
Chicago Heights and the surrounding area, and are invited to participate
in field experiments on a semiregular basis. Participants in this study
had not participated in a similar study in the past, and we asked
participants to indicate whether they knew anyone else in their group,
separating them into separate groups if they said they knew anyone. In a
survey following the experiment, we also asked participants to state
whether anyone in their group was a friend, and about 7% of participants
said they were friends with someone in their group. Our results do not
change when we control for this in the analysis.
(6.) One could formally model a signaling game to explain some
nonmonotonicities observed in our data (Feltovich, Harbaugh. and To
2002; Spence 1973). Although such an exercise is outside the scope of
our paper, potentially it could explain why participants in the negative
recognition treatment move from giving some amount below $5 to giving $5
and why participants in the positive recognition treatment shift from $5
to $10. This is an interesting exercise for future research.
(7.) Interestingly. Samek and Sheremeta (2014) find that in a
laboratory experiment negative recognition increases contributions to
the public good while positive recognition does not. There are a number
of important differences between our two studies which may explain
different findings. First, unlike the public goods game, individual
donations do not directly impact the payoffs of the group members who
view the recognition information. In the public goods game, participants
who are identified as top contributors may be viewed as
"suckers." preventing them from contributing to the public
goods, while it is not the case with charitable donations to the Red
Cross. Moreover, individuals receive no monetary benefit from the amount
of total gifts given to the Red Cross, abstracting away from concerns
about fairness, inequality-aversion, and free-riding, which are
important social motivators in public goods games (Ledyard 1995).
(8.) It is also possible that positive recognition may have a
similar effect of reducing entry in the long run. First, by creating
tournament-like incentives, positive recognition may crowd out intrinsic
motivation to donate. Second, it is well-documented that many
individuals do not like tournaments (Cason, Masters, and Sheremeta 2010:
Niederle and Vesterlund 2007) and so positive recognition may reduce
entry of such individuals.
Caption: FIGURE 1 Average Donations by Treatment
Caption: FIGURE 2 Cumulative Distribution of Donations by Treatment
Caption: FIGURE 3 Histogram of Donations by Treatment
TABLE 1
Summary of Treatments
Treatment Display of Linking Number of Number of
Donation Identities Individuals Groups
Amounts to Donations
No Yes None 57 9
recognition
Full Yes All 51 8
recognition
Negative Yes Lowest two 52 8
recognition
Positive Yes Highest two 45 7
recognition
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