The double dividend of social information in charitable giving: Evidence from a framed field experiment

Signaling, as well as receiving social information on charitable giving, is known to stimulate individuals’ donation. In this respect, we conduct a framed field experiment to analyze the interplay between signaling or receiving social information and donors’ inherent level of altruism. Intuitively, respondents with a high level of altruism donate significantly more than those with a lower level. In addition, we find that having the chance to set a positive example as well as being exposed to such enhances charitable giving, whereas the opportunity of image signaling alone does not. Furthermore, setting a positive example yields the highest donation rate among respondents with a high level of altruism, while being exposed to such yields the highest donation rate among respondents with a low level of altruism. The effect on overall donations by confronting participants with a social descriptive norm (i.e., previous donations) is significantly stronger for those with a low level of altruism, leading to an alignment of the donations by both types of donors. These heterogeneous results suggest that adapting appeals to potential donors’ inherent levels of altruism has the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of charitable campaigns. •We conduct a framed field experiment on donation behavior.•Image signaling alone does not increase charitable giving in our setting.•In contrast, sending as well as receiving social information increases giving.•We find heterogeneous effects across individuals’ with low and high altruism levels.•Very (Less) altruistic people give more when sending (receiving) social information.