The Impact of Emotions on Donating Behavior among the Students

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The Impact of Emotions on

Donating Behavior among the

Students

Aigul Murat kyzy

Experimental Analysis of Social and Cultural Differences

Prof. Dr. Christian von Scheve

Masters Program in Sociology-European Societies

Wintersemester 12/13

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Abstract

The key research goal was to measure the impact of emotions on donating behavior. Experimental

research design was used, where participants were induced with external, unrelated to charity context

emotion induction, with either positive or negative mood condition. Afterwards, the request to donate

for charity organization was made, where participants could donate any portion of two euro received for

participating in the research. Overall findings of the study support established notion that positive

emotions are stimulating towards altruistic preferences and trigger donating behavior. Students in a

positive mood condition were more likely to donate all two euro received than students with negative

mood. The impact of gender and field of study was not significant; yet, immigration background had

clearly strong and negative impact on the donated amount.

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Introduction

The activities of the not for profit sector are aimed to fulfill the gap, “left out by standardized service

packages”; to react towards the governmental and market failures and inefficiencies, and promote social

and civic community interests (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2002, p. 5; “Report Global Trends in the

Not-for-Profit Sector Industry Report,” 2011). In many countries, not for profit organizations believed

to be more trustworthy, problem solving, result oriented and effective, in comparison to public or

business organizations.

The worldwide trend in the not for profit sector, observed in last decades, is growing competition,

resulted in business and consultancy involvement to improve service package, to strengthen marketing

and communication channels and internal organizational structures (“Report Global Trends in the Not-

for-Profit Sector Industry Report,” 2011; Sargeanti, 2001). The role of individual donations for smooth

operation of charity organizations is huge, because it is a key funding source, along with the public and

business grants (ibid). Therefore, it is important to study the factors that guide individual decision to

donate and what stimulate it. Various factors can trigger donating behavior, including internal and

external incentives, as well as possession of certain characteristics that foster charity behavior and

generosity. The studies in positive psychology clearly demonstrated that emotions have strong influence

on donating behavior, and certain emotional conditions can stimulate emphatic feelings and altruistic

preferences (Anik, Aknin, Norton, & Dunn, 2009; Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). This

knowledge is actively used in charity advertising, where image portrayal of the aid recipients is done in

such a way that fosters individual sympathy to them (Chang & Lee, 2009; Small & Verrochi, 2009).

The main research interest of this project was study the impact of emotions on donated amount

participants voluntarily make for charity needs. This study used mood manipulation test, either

happiness or sadness, to measure the effect of emotional condition on the amount of charity

contributions made. The organization of the report is following. Introductory part discusses about

theories in pro social behavior and outlines the factors that trigger donation. Next, positive impact of

emotions on pro social behavior and charitable giving is described. The following part describes the

design of the study, conceptualizes donating behavior and the other context variables that stimulate

donating behavior. Design of the experiment and procedures are presented next. Afterwards, the results

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of the research, comparison and contrast to the findings of the other studies are discussed. Final section

concludes and elaborates on study limitations and further research ideas.

Part 1.2 Prosocial behavior and Charity Giving

Prosocial behavior would comprise of the activities, where the actor commits an action that is socially

considered to be beneficial to particular group of people or individual (Penner et al., 2005). Prosocial

behavior is beyond self-interest, though the degree of altruism, associated with particular prosocial

activities might vary. The expressions for demonstrated prosociality is huge, starting from helping the

elderly lady to cross the road; helping a student who has dropped the books to collect them or

willingness to engage in a campaign protecting human or animal rights. In this sense, charity donations

and giving are small fraction of pro social behavior, which narrows down the topic towards the actual

donation made in response to charity solicitations (Frey & Meier, 2002; Hibbert & Chuah, 2009).

The literature identifies various factors that explain individual motivation to engage in charitable giving.

From the one hand, theories on self interested or rational giving employs the concepts of economic

theory to explain donating behavior (Anik et al., 2009; Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007; Sargeant, 1999).

This perspective is built on the notion of utility driven pro social behavior that states that individuals are

concerned about the practical outcome of committing and action. In case of charitable behavior, utility

driven donation would mean that if the prevailing belief about importance of the charitable cause, as

well as the importance of their private donation is high, people are willing to donate (Dickert, Kleber,

Peters, & Slovic, 2011; Meier, 2006). Personal values and the concern about the issue that is under the

agenda of the charity organization are important predictors for purpose or utility driven donations that

characterize the current donors (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007). Several sectors, such as child poverty

reduction, food and humanitarian assistance perceived to be more important among the individual

donors, and solicit more funding, compared to the other fields (World Giving Index 2009). Overall

perception of the utility from the given donation or work of the charity organization, making positive

social changes and fulfilling its mission, were the factors that determined the likelihood of donation in a

lifetime (Sargeanti 2001).

If individuals’ posses low estimation of the importance of their private donations, overall donation share

would also decrease over time. Such a situation was observed in the United States from 1978 to 2008,

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when an increase of the governmental share for public goods actually decreased the overall donation

share, while individual perception of the actual utility of their donations, as well as further donation

amount decreased proportionally (List, 2011, p. 161). Another perspective is stated as reciprocal giving,

meaning that individuals are willing to reciprocate and assist others through making charitable

donations, while they believe that demonstration of these qualities is a norm, and if those in need were in

a better position, they would do the same (Frey & Meier, 2002). Besides, self interested giving

corresponds to the situation where people donate, while they want to preserve positive self image of

themselves, being pro social in the eyes of the other people. The presence of these factors in the

donating behavior imply about the impure altruism, where the behavior is guided by the other, rational

considerations (Meier, 2006, p. 28).

Altruistic giving corresponds to the charitable donation to alleviate sufferings of certain group of people,

and does not have practical considerations behind the action. This type of giving would correspond

mostly to emotional, anonymous or immediate donations, where individuals are not interested with

external rewards or community appraisal associated with donating behavior (Huber, Boven, & McGraw,

2010; Sargeant, 1999; Small & Verrochi, 2009). Besides, institutional framework theory suggest that

individual decision to donate is conditioned not only by the personal or altruistic motives, but also the

setting under which the request to donate was made (Frey & Meier, 2002, p. 17). Overall, if the

individuals are requested to donate more, the overall share of the charitable contributions is equally

higher. Also, in the setting where charity contribution is considered as a norm, individuals demonstrate

stronger compliancy towards the charitable donation behavior.

Part 2 Social Resources that Trigger Donating Behavior

What are the factors that trigger donating behavior?

Donating behavior is demonstrated in a voluntarily context, where various motivational factors might

stimulate donation (Frey & Meier, 2002; Sargeanti, 2001). These can be clustered as external and

internal incentives. External one would refer to the “warm glow effect” such as receiving different type

of reward, such as community recognition, concern about personal reputation and positive social image

(Zafar, 2008). Individuals willing to benefit from different types of rewards distributed by the charity

organization, such as tax levies, concert tickets and invitations to charity dinners, in recognition of their

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contribution are also guided by external incentives (Sargeanti 2001). Internal motives concern individual

feelings of happiness or self worth through supporting an initiative that assists certain groups of people,

and described as altruistic motives (ibid).

Motivational factors to make a donation could be context specific, and have different appeal to

individuals. The review on donating behavior, made by Wiepking (2007), outlines emotional giving,

resulted to the external crisis, and donations are solicited in the condition of lack of information and time

pressure. In such a context, charity solicitors also use aggressive persuasion techniques and charity

advertising media channels, stressing more on the emotional charity appeal, if the donating decision is

also made in a short time frame (Dickert et al., 2011; Zehnder & Stutzer, 2006). If the donating decision

could be postponed for a longer time, or continuous donor relationships are assumed with particular

charity organization, generally, more persuasive and detail specific donation frames are used.

Social Resources that Trigger Charitable Giving

Personality traits, such as being more self-interested or altruistic would determine the likelihood for

prosocial behavior (Meier 2006). Generally, it is also proved that people might initially have different

propensity to donating behavior. Also, there are certain resources, possession of which can be

stimulating to charity giving. As described by Wiepking (2009), these are higher level of education,

extended social networks and involvement with the work of religious organizations, which increase the

likelihood of pro social behavior and charitable donations. Relation of the social network towards

donation behavior could be straightforward, while requests to contribute for the charity also come from

the social networks. Integration to the religious community life was also quite a strong predictor for

charitable giving (Wiepking, 2009, p. 1976).

Stronger self-identification with the community or region contributed stimulated the share of local

charitable donations, while people considered being important helping someone, with whom they share

common features, such as a common neighborhood. The study of Brown and Ferris (2009) showed that

the amount of expressed trust to people in their communities and neighbors positively correlated with

willingness to volunteer and engage in charitable donations. Immigrants were the least donating group

of people, while they do not possess dense social networks and generally have lower trust to the other

groups. Studies by Putnam (2000) on the amount of community trust and the density of interaction

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revealed that communities with higher portion of immigrants generally had lower church attendance,

collective gatherings and celebrations, as well as cases of volunteering behavior and charity donations.

The impact of the education and verbal abilities on donating decision is also prominent (Wiepking,

2009). More likely, higher level of education and cognitive abilities positively correlates with personal

feeling of self-efficacy (Meier, 2006). This corresponds to the individual behavior, oriented towards

community good where an individual wishes to act as an agent of change and hold a belief of personal

self-worth, measured in ability to help someone. As noticed by Dickert et al. (2011) children with higher

academic performance were more likely to help others in the class room setting, and demonstrated

stronger preferences for pro social behavior in their reasoning. In this sense, higher self-esteem and

sense of self-efficacy positively correlates with altruistic and pro social behavior orientation, observed in

earlier childhood, and expressed in the further adulthood and older life stages.

Socio economic and Demographic Variables

In numerous studies age was indicated as a factor that makes people generous over time. The

explanation for elderly people engaging more with pro social behavior could be compensatory, while

feeling isolated and having more free time, elderly people search for the other means of communication

and work through charity donations (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007). In addition, the impact of gender on

donating behavior was not straightforward. According to the study of Sargeanti (1999) and review of

philanthropic researches by Bekkers &Wiepking (2007), women generally demonstrated higher

compliancy to philanthropic activities and stronger empathic feelings for the recipients of the charitable

aid. This would result in a larger share of women making small donations. Concerning the overall

amount of donation, Wiepking (2009) indicated that men were more likely to make large and more

generous charitable contributions comparing to women. Age of income of the donors had a direct and

positive effect on charity donations in many cross country researches (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007).

Generally, students were believed to be the least donating group, while they do not have a regular

income, which fosters charitable giving (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007). Assumptions were made about the

impact of the study field on charitable giving, noticing that students with the degrees in Economics and

Business donate less, while the personality traits as being self interested seemed to be more important

for people choosing this profession (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007; Meier 2006).

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Action Models on donating behavior

As described in previous sections, institutional factors, such as the contextual conditions under which

donation request is made are considered as important. The intensity and quantity of these requests, as

well as the establishment of certain institutional mechanism that simplifies donation procedures might

impact the number of donations made by individuals. The study of Frey & Meier (2002) analyzed the

example of the University of Zurich, where university administration collected donations from the

students for the grant program that assisted students with financial problems. The administration

introduced a new procedure in 2006, where students were explicitly asked in their semester extension

application if they want to contribute to the grant program. Later, students would receive bank invoice to

transfer the semester fee, and those who agreed to donate could transfer the semester fee and the

donation together, indicating the amount of donation in a separate form. Introducing this procedure,

when donation was incorporated to the semester fee transfer, largely increased the portion of students

who donated. Simplifying the procedure to make a donation resulted in an increase of the overall share

of donators, as well as collected amount of donations.

Sargeanti (2001) came up with theoretical model, that explain donor’s life time charitable contributions

based on their perception of the charitable organization and effectiveness of its work, the service

provided and the assessment of the organization performance. The life time donor value to particular

organization would refer to the overall customer satisfaction with the services, provided by the

organization, either in fulfilling its mission and effectively delivering the services promised (Sargeanti,

2001, p. 412). The analysis of 5000 donors within longer time frame showed that positive perception of

the organization’s reputation, responsiveness and satisfaction with communication material received

were good predictors for further contributions to the charitable organization. Yet, perception of the self-

benefit also had a high explanatory coefficient in donor’s support. The research made by Brand (2010)

on the “Joy of Giving”, showed that delivering hand written mail to the donors and appropriate reading

materials stressing on positive aspects of charity giving and importance of the donor contributions in

fulfilling the charity mission increased further donation share from the existing donors. Establishing

longer term donor relationships require commitment and individual connection to the donors through the

communication channels. In context of pro social behavior and commitment towards charity giving,

emotions have an important role, fostering commitment and willingness to engage with donating

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behavior. The following sections discusses the impact of emotions within charity giving or unrelated to

charity frame contexts.

Regarding the donor behavior model, several stages could be outlined. First, individual receive a charity

solicitation request. Decision to donate or not is taken either immediately or left for a longer time period.

The major charity solicitation channels are diverse, be it mail request to donate, door to door meetings

and the billboard and television advertising strategies (Chang & Lee, 2009). Some of the communication

strategies might have stronger impact on individuals, due to the direct interaction, as in case of face to

face charity solicitations (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007). In any form of communication and outreaching

strategies, either written or personal, the activation of certain beliefs and preferences might impact

willingness to engage with charity giving.

Charitable contribution is a voluntary decision, motivated either by internal factors, such as a feeling of

self-worth and efficacy through supporting a charitable cause. The review by showed that individuals

might experience sense of self-actualization through being able to help someone else. The search for

community approval and different compensators and external rewards, associated with charity giving are

commonly cited as factors that stimulate donating behavior. Yet, individual propensity to donating

behavior and altruism greatly varies among different groups of people. Possession of certain individual

resources, such as education, extended social networks and capital, and living in a community where

donating behavior is externalized as a norm greatly stimulates individual charity giving. Yet, theories

on charitable behavior find that in addition to the differences in donation due to the objective factors, the

same group of people might demonstrate different donation patterns in various circumstances. Theories

on donors’ behavior model found that patterns for pro sociality and altruism, to a certain extent, defined

by conditional or situational factors. As noted by Meier (2006: 30), “in some situations people are

motivated by altruism or inequality aversion, in other situations people care more for the socially

efficient outcome”.

Part 2 Emotions and Pro social behavior

The goal of this section was to describe in what ways emotion impact individual willingness to engage

in pro social behavior and demonstrated benevolence. The section would also present various researches

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and articles, describing how emotions were elicited and what type of emotions impact the donating

behavior the most.

The major findings derived from positive psychology theory indicate that people in happier and

optimistic mood condition generally demonstrate greater level of benevolence, altruism and compliancy

towards the societal norm to assist people with lesser fortune. Findings on emotion elicitation either in

natural or experimental context, shown in the studies of indicated the impact of emotions on pro social

orientation of individuals, either in dictator game, or responsiveness to charitable appeal and further

involvement with charity(Hibbert & Chuah, 2009; Huber et al., 2010; Ouschan, Ferguson, & Circosta,

2010).

Interestingly, higher level of correlation between the level of happiness and general propensity to

altruism suggest that causal relationship between those variables might exist. The relation of the

emotional condition as happiness per se and the pro social behavior is either cyclical or casual. General

findings from the positive psychology and mood manipulating experiments showed that people in a

happy or positive mood condition demonstrate stronger compliancy to charitable and pro social

activities. Besides, various studies suggested that volunteering, charity giving and the other forms of pro

socially oriented behavior positively correlates with the level of happiness and personal wellbeing (Anik

et al., 2009; Brown & Ferris, 2007; Frey & Meier, 2002).

The study by Meier & Stutzer (2008) analyzed casual links between life satisfaction and the

volunteering behavior in Western and Eastern Germany. Based on the Socioeconomic Panel data of

German households, the authors made correlations between level of happiness and experience of

volunteering. The panel data for households in Eastern Germany in 1992 identified that up to 9% of

people were volunteering, in contrast to 16% in 1990. This negatively affected personal perception of

wellbeing, once the habitual channels for pro social activities and volunteering were lost. In other words,

giving behavior has the value in itself, strengthening personal wellbeing and life satisfaction. From the

other hand, people in positive mood generally are more prone to engage with helping behavior.

Another debate generated in the field of philanthropic researches concerns whether or not this is

justifiable to stress on the positive impact of the altruistic behavior on personal wellbeing of the donors.

Charity giving is associated to be an altruistic behavior, yet, positive impact of giving on level of

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happiness is shown. Stressing on the value of making donations to become happy and improve personal

wellbeing could from the one hand, increase the amount of donations and the number of donors. The

other concern is framing the act of giving from the perspective of personal benefit might decrease the

sense of self-worth and joy, initially associated with donating behavior (Anik et al., 2009). This would

crowd out the altruistic motives with self-interested mode of thinking, which in the long run reduces the

charity donations.

Emotion and donating decision

Principles of social marketing, where certain images and stories, that provoke emotions and stimulate

donating behavior, are explicitly used in charity solicitations. Charity advertising that provoke stronger

emotional response from potential donors might be successful mostly towards the short term donation

decisions. To establish longer term donor relationship, stronger emphasis on the quality of work and

objective information about the delivered services through communication channels is necessary (Anik

et al., 2009; Sargeant, 1999; Sargeanti, 2001)Immediate donating decision; Sad/ happy images in charity

advertisement provoke different emotions- either empathy or sympathy;

Framing techniques are used in charity advertising or storytelling, that effectively stimulates certain

emotional response and impact individual judgments (Chang & Lee, 2009). This task is achieved

through using photos, positive or negative stories mainly aimed to foster empathy among the donors,

and trigger altruistic preferences. Researches by Cookson & Britain (2000) and Dickert et al. (2011)

showed that short term and immediate donating decisions are indeed influenced by the emotional appeal

demonstrated in the charity advertising or storytelling. Yet, being continuously exposed to empathic

emotional conditions, individuals demonstrate psychological numbing, while the impact of the emotion

stimulation is limited in terms of loner term donating decision. Establishing longer term donating

relationships with the donor is more complex task, where individual donors need to be persuaded about

quality and effectiveness of work made by charity organization (Sargeant, 1999) .

Outlining beliefs and preferences behind the pro social action was important factor to explain donating

behavior in a longer action framework. Study of Ellingsen et al. (2011) used dictator game experiments

to measure individual willingness to act pro socially through stimulating certain beliefs and preferences

to cooperation or self interested behavior. “Community” game frame, as opposed to “wall street, where

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individual belief to act pro socially and reciprocate was strengthened indeed demonstrated higher level

of cooperation during the first round of the game. Sequential rounds of the game diminished the results,

leading the authors to the concluding that framing of the game mostly influenced individual beliefs of

how to behave in the game, but not the preferences, which would have stable and longer time impact on

behavior.

Strategies on emotion induction

Emotion induction could be achieved either through charity donation frame, where key focus is made on

the facial expressions and life stories of the subjects, to whom charity project delivers assistance. For

example, in the study of (Burt & Strongman, 2004) participants were shown the pictures of children with

sad and happy faces. Further questionnaires were delivered, aimed to measure participants’ willingness

to support the charity project. The overall finding was that being exposed to the pictures with sad faces

of children, respondents were more likely to demonstrate stronger willingness to support the charity

project and contribute. Possible explanation for that is stronger action of the empathic emotions through

inducing negative charity donation frame, showing how difficult the life situation of the subjects was,

which could bettered through the assistance delivered by the charity organization. However, the impact

of emotions was prominent when immediate charitable donations were made. Sequential series of

experiments, where participants were exposed to this empathic emotional condition several times

weakened the impact of their emotions on donating decision made.

Another form of mood manipulation comes from the external condition, where positive or negative

mood is caused by the factor, not related to the lives of people in need or the work of the charity

organization. The studies of (Small & Verrochi, 2009)showed that people induced with positive mood

through the exercise, not related to the charity donation frame, generally did not impact level of empathy

participants felt towards the subjects of the charity work. Yet, researches on experimental psychology

showed that general propensity to helping behavior increased, when individuals were induced with

positive emotional condition. In the experiment of , students were in scenery of finding a coin or

receiving happy cookie while studying in a library, and then asked for a help by the other student, they

were more likely to help, as opposed to those, who did not receive anything (Isen & Levin, 1972).

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Interesting thing would be to observe, whether or not, happy or sad mood condition drastically impacts

the donating behavior, and the overall donation amount. If to assume that helping behavior is stimulated

by the positive emotions, would this make people more generous towards charity contributions? This

was a major question to find the answer through conducting the experiment.

Part 3 Description of the Study

Study goals

The key research goal of given project was to measure the impact of positive and negative emotions on

donating behavior. As described in previous studies, positive emotional stimuli generally was shown to

impact donating and pro social behavior positively and strengthen altruistic preferences of the

individuals (Isen & Levin, 1972). Yet, concerning the impact of emotions on specifically, the amount of

donation, these studies did not have precise information on how generous individuals in a positive state

are in terms of amount of actual donation, comparing to the group in a negative mood condition. Thus,

the key research interest was to measure the extent to which emotional induction of the participants

might impact the generosity of the participants to the charity needs measured in terms of the actual

donation amount given to the charity organization. This was achieved through using an experimental set

up, where participants were asked to make a donation to the charity organization.

The effect of gender, subject of specialization, the amount of social capital and immigration background

were used as control variables. These variables were found to impact donating behavior independently

from the emotion induction treatment assigned to participants. Section on methods of the research

presents the conceptualization and describes the indicators that were used to measure donating behavior

and the general donation amount, as well as social capital.

Methods

The study used an external emotional induction sheet, manipulating with positive and negative mood

condition to the participants. This was a replication of the standardized emotion induction test

established and validated by Strack, Schwarz, & Gschneidinger (1985) and replicated in the studies of

Small & Verrochi (2009) to measure the impact of emotions on attributed level of sympathy and

empathy towards the target group of the charity organization.

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Emotional induction treatment, randomly assigned to participants, was either positive or negative.

Afterwards, participants were asked to fill out the questionnaire that contained questions measuring the

scores for the control variables, including gender, study field, immigration background and social

capital. The questionnaires were delivered in English or German. As a compensation for research

participation, respondents received 2 Euro. The cover story of the experiment was that this research was

studying language use in daily life and prosocial behavior. This justified the tasks for the emotion

induction, where students were asked to list 5 things that make them either happy or sad, and elaborate

on one of them in detail. Afterwards, the information about the Child Fund Deutschland was presented,

and participants were asked to make a donation out of 2 euro received. In selecting the recipient

organization for this task, the key criteria were trustworthiness and working history of the organization,

and specializing on assisting children in need on a globe level. In this sense, Child Fund Deutschland

had a “Spendensiegel”, a certificate for transparent and efficient work in charity support in Germany, up

to 40 year long history assisting children in crisis affected regions, and was selected as a recipient

organization for student donations.

Donating Behavior

The indicators were donating behavior were following. From the one hand, the overall donated amount

was measured. Students’ donations out of 2 euro received was an indication for that. Secondly, longer

term donating behavior was measured in terms of demonstrated willingness to engage with the charity

and pro social initiatives. This concerned respondents’ willingness to volunteer for the charity

organization once being asked (i); recommending friends and family members to volunteer for the

charity projects to support children in need (ii); and recommend making donations among friends and

family members (iii). For these questions, Likert scale in seven points was used.

“Social capital” or network based capital, used in the study of Putnam (2000) and replicated by Brown

& Ferris, (2007), mainly was tacking the impact of trust and social networks on community engagement

and volunteering. Among the variety of indicators used in these studies, only those that were related to

charity donation or community engagement were selected. Indicators used were whether or not in last 12

months respondents volunteered for the community projects, donated goods or clothing for charity

causes; attended the meeting or political demonstration, designed to improve wellbeing of people in the

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community and invited people to their house, whom they consider community leaders. Respondents’

age, field of specialization, gender and immigration background were controlled.

Based on the literature reviewed, the study made following hypotheses:

Positive emotional induction positively correlates with the amount of donation, in

contrast to the negative mood condition;

Longer term donating behavior, resulted in behavior intention towards charity

organization involvement would not be impacted by the emotional induction exercise;

Field of study and gender impacts the amount of donation and donating behavior;

Students with high level of social capital and past donating experience demonstrate

higher compliancy to donating behavior, which moderates the impact of the emotional induction

test.

Participants

In this research, 38 students from Free, Humboldt and Technical Universities participated. Haphazard

quota sampling was used. First, flyers with information about the research were distributed at Free

University, and students interested in the research could register for participation indicating their field of

study and age. Also, information about recruiting participants was spread through university e-mail

networks. Two sessions were held on January 24th and 25th 2013, where 15 students participated. While

it was important to recruit students from different fields of study, a seminar session at Humboldt

University was attended on February 7 2013, where specifically Business and Economics students were

recruited to participate in the research. Also, a session at the Catholic Institute of Free University, and

another session at Technical University were attended on January 30 and February 18, 2013. The total

amount of donation collected from students equaled 56 Euro and was transferred to the bank account of

Child Fund Deutschland.

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Part 4 Study Results & Discussion

Emotional induction vs Donated Amount

The study hypothesized that positive emotional induction triggers the amount of donation, in contrast to

the negative mood condition. Overall, nineteen students were induced with positive or negative

emotional tests, comprising the total number of participants to thirty eight. Therefore, absolute numbers

are compared.

Figure 1 shows the absolute numbers of donated sum grouped according to the emotional induction test.

Among the positive induction group, the portion of those who donated all 2 euro received for

participation was higher comparing to the group with negative induction. Respondents in a negative

mood condition were more likely to abstain from any donations or donate the amount less than 1 euro,

while groups in a positive mood condition generally were giving back all 2 euro received for research

participation. Overall range of 2 euro in 20 cent coins received was not clearly used by respondents. In

FIGURE 1DONATED AMOUNT GROUPED ACCORDING TO EMOTION INDUCTION TEST

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terms of overall share of respondents, who gave back all 2 euro received in both positive and negative

mood conditions was up to 70%. One way explanation for such a high return amount is that the project

was introduced to study the language use in everyday life and pro social behavior. The justification for

donation request was described that charity donation is an indication for pro social behavior. In this

sense, description of the research project was already activating frames on donating behavior, while

individuals would be willing to show their degree of pro sociality and complying with the donation

request. Another factor was that receiving the amount of money in coins was not practical enough,

which make respondents quite willing to give back, especially, once the charity organization helping

children was stated as a recipient.

Also, large portion of respondents were recruited to the research right after their class in the room,

where they have just completed a course. They did not have to arrange a time, register in advance or

somehow prepare themselves for research participation. This context where respondents participated in

a research without previous arrangements, and where completion of the questionnaire did not take a lot

of time, which made students more willing to give back all 2 euro received for the charity need.

Besides, Wiepking (2007) discussed that generally, people behave quite differently in terms of donating

their personal money on their own disposal they have earned before, or the sum received for research or

dictator game participation. The assumption is that participants are more generous giving back the

money, received for volunteer participation in a study or dictator game, that was not time consuming.

Yet, respondents might be less generous donating their personal money.

Even in this context, the impact of emotional induction on the amount donated was quite prominent.

Negative mood condition definitely had a negative impact on donated amount, which is also shown in

Regression Table for respondents’ donated amount. Taking a positive emotion induction as a reference

group, the average donated amount in a group with negative mood condition was 0,60 times smaller, and

this result was significant at 90% level. This study also supports previous findings and researches,

stressing that positive emotions and mood generally make people more altruistic, donating, stimulate

personal benevolence traits and sense of self efficacy, that trigger charity giving (Anik et al., 2009;

Ouschan et al., 2010; Zafar, 2008). While this study was not intended to describe why positive emotions

are stimulating donating behavior, yet, the impact of emotions on donated amount was clearly observed.

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Gender and Donating behavior

In terms of the impact of gender, the study assumed that females are more donating comparing to male

students. Besides, the assumption was made about the impact of study field on overall donating

behavior, assuming that students of business and economics are generally more self interested and less

donating comparing to the students from religious studies or other fields. Among the research

participants, up to 60% were females and 40% males. In terms of study fields, almost one third of the

participants were studying Business or Economics, the portion or Political Social Science students was

the same, and 24% were students of Technical Studies and 18% were students of Religion and Culture.

In terms of gender differences in the donated amount, figure 3 shows that overall share of respondents

who donated all 2 euro back among females and males was not that different, comprising up to 70% of

total number of respondents. Yet, the gender difference was more prominent in a category of those, who

did not donate, comprising up to 27% of males and 13% females. Yet, females were more likely than

males to donate the amount in the range from 1 to 1,5 euro, while males were either giving back all 2

euro or 0. However, in this sample, higher portion of males (60%) were assigned for a negative mood

condition and 40% of females. Therefore, differences in donating could be caused by manipulation of

FIGURE 3 DONATED AMOUNT CLUSTERED ACCORDING TO GENDER

FIGURE 2RESPONDENTS' FIELD OF STUDY

19

the mood condition, and not inherent charity generosity of one gender over the other. Indeed, as shown

in Regression Table for Donated Amount, where females were counted as a reference group, the impact

of gender on donated amount was not found to be significant.

This was quite surprising to know that the assumption of business students being more rational and less

generous was proved to be completely opposite. As indicated in Figure 5, the average donated amount

among business students was the highest, comprising to almost 1,65. Religious study students were only

second, with students of political and social sciences to be the least generous. Yet, including the study

field to the regression analysis did not generate any significant results. In order to generalize about the

impact of the study field on donated amount, the sample size of students from different majors should be

expanded.

In terms of the impact of the social capital indexes on the donated amount, with an increase of the

overall index score for social capital, the amount donated was also increasing. The regression table also

shows a positive impact of the social capital indexes on the donated amount, yet the score does not meet

the significance level. Therefore, given study does not support nor refute the assumption about the

impact of social capital fostering the donating behavior and moderating the impact of the emotion

Figure 4 Average donated amount for students with different

majors

Figure 5 Average donated amount in groups with different

social capital index

20

induction test. More likely, the indicators for the social capital, taken from the Putnam’s (2000) study

were not mutually inclusive and specific enough, which weaken the explanatory impact of these scores.

Immigration background was the strongest predictor for the donated amount. The donations from

German students were the highest comparing to the students from the other countries. The regression

analysis, where German students were taken as a reference group, indicated that immigrant students in

average were likely to donate 0,90 points less than locals, and the coefficient was significant.

Longer Term Donating Behavior

It was hypothesized that longer term donating behavior, resulted in behavior intention towards charity

organization involvement would not be impacted by the emotional induction exercise. Following figures

present the scores for the indicators of the longer term donating behavior, clustered according to the

emotion induction sheet.

Figure 6 Indicators for longer term donating behavior clustered according to the emotion induction test

21

As shown in Figure 6, the portion of respondents, who indicated that they were very likely to bring

discussions about the charity work to their personal network, willing to volunteer and recommending

their friends and family members donating, was almost identical. The variation was observed in the

category of respondents who indicated they were likely to volunteer, recommend friends volunteering

and donating. Groups with positive emotional induction were represented much more in this category,

while respondents in a negative mood condition mostly preferred a category “more likely than not

likely”. Yet, this might be due to the random effect of respondents with higher general propensity to

donate being assigned with positive induction.

The indicators measuring longer term donating behavior and overall intention to bring talks about

volunteering and charity giving among personal circles were not found to be significant in terms of

actual impact on the overall donated amount. Therefore, sample size should be increased in order to

support or refute this hypothesis. Overall, in collected data, immigration background and emotion

induction were stronger predictors for the amount of donation. The impact of gender, field of study and

social capital did not meet the significance level, and cannot be generalized. Yet, directions of these

variables comply with established findings, stating that female are more generous in terms of smaller

donations and the increase in social capital foster donating behavior. The difference was observed in

terms of the impact of the study field on donating behavior, while according to the findings of these

study students of business and economics are the most generous group.

Part 5 Conclusion

The major goal of the study was to measure the impact of emotions on donating behavior, specifically,

the effect of positive emotions in stimulating charity donations and giving. Variety of individual

resources were believed to impact prosocial behavior and charity donations, amongst them gender,

education level and field of study, and possession of extended social networks and immigration

background were found to be important. Besides, it was intended to observe the impact of emotions on

longer term donating behavior, measured in terms of demonstrated willingness to volunteer for charity

organization once being asked, and recommending family members and friends making charity

donations and volunteering.

22

Bearing this in mind, experimental set up was created where individuals were first induced with either

positive or negative mood tests, and then, requested to donate a portion of the money received as

reimbursement for participation. The variables of research interest were controlled. The research

supports the hypothesis about the diminishing impact of the negative emotions on the amount of

donation. Students in a negative mood condition were more likely to abstain from making donations, or

donate smaller sums comparing to the students induced with positive emotions. Also, immigration

background had a substantial and negative effect on the amount of donations. The impact of gender and

field of study were not found to be significant. Students’ emotional induction was not found to have a

significant effect on demonstrated longer term donating behavior. Sample size was quite modest, and

besides, to recruit participants, haphazard quota sampling was used. In some cases, students without

prior arrangements participated in the research and were given a compensation for research involvement.

It is assumed that in such a context inflates the scores for donated amount and generosity, while students

are more likely to donate all the money received, knowing that filling out the questionnaire generally did

not take more than 20 minutes. Replication of the study with a larger sample of students, and prior

registration and turnover to participate in the research at certain time and date might change the share of

students, who donate all money received for research participation.

23

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Appendix A

Regression table for Respondent’s Donated Amount

Constant 2,178

(0,299)

Negative emotion

induction

-0,602*

(0,233)

Gender_male -0,405

(0,256)

Imigration background -0,925

**

(0,267)

Social capital- index

variable

0,217

(0,164)

R-squared 0,363

No. observations 38

Standard errors are reported in parentheses.

*, **indicates significance at the 90% and 95%.

26

Appendix B Research Questionnaire

Dear participant,

Thank you for your participation in this research!

This research is conducted in the frame of the research placement module of the MA program

"Sociology - European Societies» at Free University of Berlin.

The goals of the study are twofold. In the first part we are interested to study the usage of language in

everyday speech. Please answer all the questions carefully and provide sufficient explanations to your

arguments.

The second part is aimed to measure the level of pro social behavior and civic engagement.

You are compensated with 2 Euros for your participation.

Aigul Murat kyzy

27

Part 1

1. Please, briefly describe in the following table the list with six things that make you happy.

1. 4.

2. 5.

3. 6.

2. Please, describe one item from your list in detail, so that someone reading this might get happier just

from learning about the situation.

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

28

Part 2

Donating Behavior

The indication for prosocial behavior is involvement with charity donations. You now have an

opportunity to donate a portion of 2 Euros you have received to the charity. The recipient is “Child

Fund Deutschland”, a not for profit charity organization, that supports children from poor regions of the

world. "ChildFund Deutschland " is a well known and established organization that has been awarded

with “Spendensiegel", the German certificate for transparent and efficient charity work.

Please, specify which portion of your 2 Euros you would like to donate. Please, put that amount into the

envelope, when giving back the completed questionnaire.

How much do you want to donate to this charity cause?

____________

You can verify if the sum of individual donations were purposefully transferred. The receipt from all the

collected donations will be put on the following link: www.donnation.wordpress.com.

Civic Participation

Please, indicate your attitude to the following questions in 7 point scale from 1 (Unlikely) to 7 (Very

much likely)

Unlikely

Very much likely

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

If you were asked, would you volunteer

for the charity projects, in support of

children from poor regions?

□ □ □ □ □ □ □

Would you recommend your friends and

family members volunteering to assist

children in need?

□ □ □ □ □ □ □

Would you recommend making

donations to support children in need

among your friends and family members?

□ □ □ □ □ □ □

29

In last 12 months, have you:

Volunteered for the community projects? □ Yes □ No

Donated goods or clothing for charity causes? □ Yes □ No

Attended the meeting or political demonstration, designed to

improve wellbeing of people in your community?

□ Yes □ No

Invited people to your house, whom you consider community

leaders?

□ Yes □ No

Demographic questions

Date of brith: _____________ Country of Citizenship: ________________

Gender: □ female □ male Subject of Study: _________________