TY - JOUR
T1 - Thinking, good and bad? Deliberative thinking and the singularity effect in charitable giving
AU - Moche, Hajdi
AU - Gordon-Hecker, Tom
AU - Kogut, Tehila
AU - Västfjäll, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), grant number 1757315. Copyright: © 2022. The authors license this article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022.
PY - 2022/1/1
Y1 - 2022/1/1
N2 - Can deliberation increase charitable giving when giving is impulsive (i.e., a one-time small gift in response to an immediate appeal)? We conduct two studies in Israel and Sweden to compare two forms of deliberation, unguided and guided, in their ability to decrease the singularity effect (i.e., giving more to one than many victims), often evident in impulsive giving. Under unguided deliberation, participants were instructed to simply think hard before making a donation decision whereas participants in the guided deliberation condition were asked to think how much different prespecified decision attributes should influence their decision. We find that both types of deliberation reduce the singularity effect, as people no longer value the single victim higher than the group of victims. Importantly, this is driven by donations being decreased under deliberation only to the single victim, but not the group of victims. Thus, deliberation affects donations negatively by overshadowing the affective response, especially in situations in which affect is greatest (i.e., to a single victim). Last, the results show that neither type of deliberation significantly reversed the singularity effect, as people did not help the group significantly more than the single victim. This means that deliberate thinking decreased the overall willingness to help, leading to a lower overall valuation of people in need.
AB - Can deliberation increase charitable giving when giving is impulsive (i.e., a one-time small gift in response to an immediate appeal)? We conduct two studies in Israel and Sweden to compare two forms of deliberation, unguided and guided, in their ability to decrease the singularity effect (i.e., giving more to one than many victims), often evident in impulsive giving. Under unguided deliberation, participants were instructed to simply think hard before making a donation decision whereas participants in the guided deliberation condition were asked to think how much different prespecified decision attributes should influence their decision. We find that both types of deliberation reduce the singularity effect, as people no longer value the single victim higher than the group of victims. Importantly, this is driven by donations being decreased under deliberation only to the single victim, but not the group of victims. Thus, deliberation affects donations negatively by overshadowing the affective response, especially in situations in which affect is greatest (i.e., to a single victim). Last, the results show that neither type of deliberation significantly reversed the singularity effect, as people did not help the group significantly more than the single victim. This means that deliberate thinking decreased the overall willingness to help, leading to a lower overall valuation of people in need.
KW - Affect
KW - Charity
KW - Deliberation
KW - Identified victim
KW - Singularity effect
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123758230&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123758230
SN - 1930-2975
VL - 17
SP - 14
EP - 30
JO - Judgment and Decision Making
JF - Judgment and Decision Making
IS - 1
ER -