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A Review and Framework for Thinking about the Drivers of Prosocial Consumer Behavior

2019; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/706782

2378-1823

Katherine White, Rishad Habib, Darren W. Dahl,

Behavioral Health and Interventions

Previous articleNext article FreeThe Prosocial ConsumerA Review and Framework for Thinking about the Drivers of Prosocial Consumer BehaviorKatherine White, Rishad Habib, and Darren W. DahlKatherine White, Rishad Habib, and Darren W. DahlKatherine White ([email protected]) is professor of marketing and behavioral science and academic director, Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia. Rishad Habib ([email protected]) is PhD candidate in marketing and behavioral science, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia. Darren W. Dahl ([email protected]) is senior associate dean and director, Robert H. Lee Graduate School, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreIn recent years, the topic of prosocial consumer behavior has garnered more and more attention from consumer researchers, resulting in a steady increase in published journal articles on the subject—from 186 articles in 2000 to 1,763 articles in 2018 (fig. 1; see http://www.webofknowledge.com). Drawing on this momentum, this special issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research on “The Prosocial Consumer” highlights different perspectives on the causes, motivations, and consequences of prosocial consumer behaviors. We conceptualize prosocial consumer behavior broadly and view it as encompassing any consumer behavior that leads to some cost to the self in order to achieve some benefit for others (Small and Cryder 2016). As such, prosocial consumer behavior could refer to an action that involves helping or benefitting a specific person or persons but could also reflect more general behaviors that benefit wider society. Prosocial consumer behaviors can include (but are not limited to) charitable giving and other donation behaviors (such as blood donation, organ donation, etc.), volunteering, altruistic consumer behaviors, ethical purchasing, cause-related engagement, and consumer advocacy or activism.Figure 1. Mentions of prosocial consumer behavior. Journal articles published with prosocial OR charitable OR ethical consum* behav* from 1990 to 2018.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointThe SHIFT Framework and Prosocial Consumer BehaviorRecently, the SHIFT model has been applied in the domain of encouraging sustainable consumer behaviors (White, Habib, and Hardisty 2019; White, Hardisty, and Habib 2019). This framework highlights five key drivers of behavior change: social influence, habit formation, the individual self, feelings and cognition, and tangibility. We suggest that the SHIFT model can be useful in categorizing prosocial consumer behaviors and their underlying psychological drivers. In this introduction to the special issue, we use the SHIFT framework to organize a review of the current state of prosocial consumer behavior research, to underscore factors that are the most important drivers in the prosocial domain, to highlight the articles in this issue of JACR, and to suggest directions for future research.Social InfluenceSocial influence stems from the presence, expectations, and behaviors of others. Such influence has been shown to motivate prosocial behavior via public observability, social norms, and social group memberships.Public ObservabilityFirst, factors that make a given action more public or observable to others lead to increases in prosocial consumer behaviors such as charitable giving (Benabou and Tirole 2003; Soetevent 2005; White and Peloza 2009) and choosing ethical products (Peloza, White, and Shang 2013). People are particularly inclined to donate more in public versus private when the charity is viewed as a “good cause” or when benefits to others (rather than self-benefits) are highlighted (Ariely, Bracha, and Meier 2009; White and Peloza 2009). Even creating the perception of observability, for example, through images of eyes watching the individual, can increase prosocial responses such as contributing to an office’s coffee fund (Bateson, Daniel, and Gilbert 2006), donating to charity (Ekström 2012), and giving more in a dictator game (Krupka and Croson 2016). However, there are conditions under which increasing the public nature of the action can decrease prosocial responses. In one example, those who publicly (vs. privately) displayed a token act of charitable support to others (such as joining a public Facebook group or signing a public petition) were less likely to subsequently provide meaningful support (e.g., donating money or volunteering time) when asked to do so. This “slacktivist” type of effect appears to be driven by the resolution of impression-management concerns, whereby the consumer has already conveyed a positive image to others via the first token prosocial action (Kristofferson, White, and Peloza 2014). Thus, public observability tends to increase prosocial behaviors, unless the individual has already had the opportunity to publicly signal his or her prosocial actions to others.In addition to social observability influencing prosocial outcomes, people make social judgments by observing the altruistic actions of others and inferring their motives. While observing other consumers (Aquino, McFerran, and Laven 2011) and firms (Sen and Bhattacharya 2001) behaving prosocially is generally judged positively, factors that signal self-serving motives—such as payment for advocates of a cause or donating to charity to gain publicity or improve public image—can lead to negative reactions toward other people (Newman and Cain 2014; Barasch, Berman, and Small 2016) and toward firms (Chernev and Blair 2015). Observers’ judgments of other people’s prosocial and moral actions can vary as a function of whether the target consumer is a low-income earner (Olson et al. 2016). In particular, those on government assistance can be judged harshly for ethical choices such as buying organic food or renting a hybrid vehicle because these consumers seem less deserving of being free to spend money as they wish.Social NormsProsocial actions are also heavily influenced by social norms, which convey information about what is approved of and viewed as appropriate by others in a given social situation. Norms have been shown to predict a variety of prosocial consumer behaviors such as monetary donations to charity (White and Peloza 2009), donating blood (Latour and Manrai 1989), volunteering (Fisher and Ackerman 1998), and engaging in sustainable consumer behaviors (White et al. 2019). Cialdini, Kallgren, and Reno (1991) and Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990) maintain that norms are best divided into two categories. The first is descriptive norms, which refer to information conveyed regarding what is commonly done by others. Descriptive norms have been shown to predict charitable giving (Frey and Meier 2004; Shang, Reed, and Croson 2008; Schrift and Amar 2015), increase volunteering (Chen et al. 2010), and facilitate other prosocial behaviors such as energy conservation (Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius 2008). Responsiveness to descriptive norms can be enhanced when the norm is made salient (Cialdini et al. 1990), when acting in a socially desirable manner is important (Cai and Wyer 2015), and when the collective (as opposed to the individual self) is activated (White and Simpson 2013). However, descriptive social norms should be used with caution because, if they convey the impression that an undesirable behavior is common, this can increase the tendency to engage in the negative behavior (Cialdini 2003, 2005). Similarly, norms that communicate low base rates of engaging in a behavior can decrease the tendency to engage in that behavior (Schultz et al. 2007; Gerber and Rogers 2009). Thus, descriptive norms can have a powerful influence on prosocial consumer behaviors but only when they communicate that the desirable, prosocial action is commonly engaged in by others.The second category of norms is injunctive norms, which refer to information conveyed regarding what is commonly approved and disapproved of by others. Injunctive norms can encourage prosocial behaviors but can sometimes backfire. For example, injunctive norms are less effective when consumers are in a more independent (vs. interdependent) mindset (White and Simpson 2013). In particular, communicating what others think one should do (“Your neighbors want you to grasscycle. Grasscycling is something we should do …”) along with individual-level statements (“you, as an individual”) leads to decreased sustainable actions compared to communicating the same message along with collective-self statements (“we, as a community”). In another example, assertive injunctive statements such as “Reducing air pollution: everyone must use more public transportation!” led to unfavorable reactions (Kronrod, Grinstein, and Wathieu 2012). However, consumers responded better to assertive requests in domains that they viewed as important. Thus, while injunctive norms can be impactful in influencing prosocial behaviors, they should be used with care, so as not to engender reactive consumer responses.Social Group Memberships and BelongingFinally, social influence is associated with prosocial consumer behaviors through people’s connections with important group memberships or social identities. Ingroups typically have greater influence on individuals than do outgroups. People are more likely to behave in a prosocial manner when norms and behavioral standards are set by an ingroup (Shang et al. 2008; Hysenbelli, Rubaltelli, and Rumiati 2013), when the beneficiary is part of the ingroup (e.g., Levine et al. 2005; Park and Lee 2015), and when people feel accountable to those with whom they share a broader social identity (e.g., fellow college students; Kaikati et al. 2017). In addition, when people learn that a negatively viewed “dissociative” outgroup has outperformed their ingroup on a positive, prosocial action (such as water conservation or composting), consumers often increase their own positive actions (White, Simpson, and Argo 2014). This tendency is heightened when the context is highly public in nature, because this increases consumers’ focus on the collective self. Thus, the work on social group memberships suggests that people will consume in a prosocial manner when such behaviors reinforce or defend the values and norms of the ingroup.Finally, a sense of social belonging or exclusion more generally can predict prosocial consumer behaviors (Twenge et al. 2007; Lee and Shrum 2012). For example, while social exclusion in the form of being ignored can increase conspicuous consumption and can decrease prosocial behaviors, being explicitly rejected can increase prosocial behaviors such as helping others and donating to charity (Lee and Shrum 2012). This is because social exclusion in the form of being ignored tends to threaten efficacy needs, while explicit rejection tends to threaten relational needs and leads to a desire to reconnect with others.Habit FormationHabit formation and behavioral learning techniques can also be used to encourage prosocial consumer actions. Habits form when actions are repeated over time in particular contexts (Ouellette and Wood 1998; Verplanken 2011). While, at first blush, it might seem counterintuitive to link prosocial behaviors with habit formation, researchers have found that prosocial behaviors can operate in a habitual manner. Indeed, prosocial behaviors often occur automatically (Cornelissen, Dewitte, and Warlop 2011), are made in a rapid and instinctive manner (Rand, Greene, and Nowak 2012; Lotito, Migheli, and Ortona 2013), and can increase when an individual is under cognitive load (Schulz et al. 2014). Moreover, neurological evidence suggests that prosocial actions can exhibit brain activation patterns that resemble those of habitual behaviors (Gęsiarz and Crockett 2015). Prosocial behavior can become habitual if practiced from a young age (Rosen and Sims 2011) and if behaviors are realized in small increments consistently over time (e.g., repetitive giving of a donation in small amounts; Meer 2013). Moreover, blood donations can be habitual in nature and can lead to future commitment to continue with the action (Ferguson 1996). Behavioral learning tools used to promote positive, prosocial habit formation by facilitating and encouraging repeated actions include making an action easy, offering incentives or punishment, and giving feedback.Making It EasyMaking behaviors easy to perform is the cornerstone of behavior change and can lead to greater monetary donations, volunteering, and other habitual prosocial behaviors (Gregory and Leo 2003; Biel, Dahlstrand, and Grankvist 2005). For instance, blood donation drives that minimize the distance people have to travel to donate blood (Olaiya et al. 2004) and checkout cashiers who ask people if they wish to simply “round up and donate the difference” can increase donations by reducing the effort and psychological discomfort that prosocial behaviors can sometimes entail (Kelting, Robinson, and Lutz 2019).One of the most powerful ways to make an action easy is to use defaults (Johnson and Goldstein 2003; McKenzie, Liersch, and Finkelstein 2006; Goswami and Urminsky 2016). Perhaps the most striking example is in the realm of organ donation. Countries that consider registration as an organ donor to be the default choice have much higher registration, often close to 100%, compared to countries that require individuals to opt in to organ donation (Johnson and Goldstein 2003). The power of defaults carries a downside. Defaults can reduce the average donation amount if they are set too low, decrease the influence of other important information such as third-party ratings of the charity's quality (Goswami and Urminsky 2016), and make it easier to carry out dishonest behavior (Mazar and Hawkins 2015). In situations where setting a default is difficult, expensive, or infeasible, active or forced choice can have similar positive effects, particularly if the favored alternative can be highlighted (Keller et al. 2011; Putnam-Farr and Riis 2016). Overall, then, making prosocial actions easy increases the likelihood that people will engage in the desired behavior.Incentives and PunishmentA key component of habit formation involves the reinforcement of behaviors. Learning theorists posit that prosocial actions can become learned behaviors because people will choose alternatives with a high probability of leading to satisfactory outcomes (and decreasing negative outcomes; Rushton and Teachman 1978). In other words, a prosocial behavior is more likely to become habitual if it is reinforced via incentives and rewards while other, non-prosocial actions are discouraged via punishments (Clotfelter 1980; Gilbert 2005). Incentives for prosocial behavior can be monetary, material, prosocial, or reputational, with different downstream consequences for each.Monetary incentives such as tax deductions can make it more cost-effective to act prosocially (Internal Revenue Service 2019) and increase charitable giving over the long run (Clotfelter 1980). Monetary incentives can be more motivating when incentive amounts are larger, while prosocial incentives that donate some money to a cause are less affected by the size of the incentive (Imas 2014; Charness, Cobo-Reyes, and Sanchez 2016). However, it is important to note that sometimes monetary incentives have unintended consequences because they can crowd out motivations to engage in the prosocial action (Gneezy and Rustichini 2000b; Meier 2007; Ariely et al. 2009; Gneezy, Meier, and Rey-Biel 2011; Barasch et al. 2016; Giebelhausen et al. 2016). In addition, turning the prosocial action into an economic transaction can have other undesirable side effects such as reducing the possibility of reputational benefits (Ariely et al. 2009) and making advocates seem less sincere to others (Barasch et al. 2016). Monetary incentives can also reduce guilt and increase satisfaction for those who choose not to participate in a charitable program (Giebelhausen et al. 2016).Noncash incentives, on the other hand, such as lottery tickets, gift cards, a paid day off work, scholarships, or material gifts such as T-shirts have a more positive effect on a wide range of prosocial behaviors including blood donations (Chrisman 1988; Lacetera, Macis, and Slonim 2012, 2013, 2014), charitable donations (Holmes, Miller, and Lerner 2002), energy conservation (Hutton and McNeill 1981) and kidney donations (Linford 2008). However just like monetary incentives, there is a notable caveat to using material incentives in prosocial domains: promise of gifts at the time of charitable giving can actually decrease the amount of donations (Newman and Shen 2012; Zlatev and Miller 2016). A purely economic perspective is likely to assume that individuals will respond positively to monetary and material incentives, but if they “crowd out” altruistic motives then lower prosocial behavior may be the result.Moreover, prosocial incentives whereby incentive money is donated to a cause can be a strong motivator, especially in comparison to equivalent small amounts of monetary incentives to the actor (Imas 2014; Tonin and Vlassopoulos 2014). Prosocial incentives can improve people's productivity and performance and increase prosocial choices such as blood donation (Mellström and Johannesson 2008). Reputational incentives such as making donation decisions public (Ariely et al. 2009) and newspaper announcement of donors (Lacetera and Macis 2010; Karlan and McConnell 2014) have been shown to increase donations. However, it is notable that public recognition for charitable giving can backfire when the consumer views the self as being independent from others (Simpson, White, and Laran 2018).Punishment for negative behavior can be social, potentially involving blame, ostracism, and/or reputational costs to the self (Feinberg, Willer, and Schultz 2014; Monroe and Malle 2019) or the group (Engelmann, Herrmann, and Tomasello 2018), or it can be financial, such as taxes and fines (Sussman and Olivola 2011). Certain consumers, particularly those who favor anti-tax political parties, are more motivated to avoid taxes than an equivalent amount of costs (Sussman and Olivola 2011), and this can lead to lower support for carbon taxes over offsets (Hardisty et al. 2019). Just as positive incentives can have unintended consequences, so can punishments. In one interesting example, researchers found that implementing a new fine on parents who were late picking up their children from daycare actually increased the undesirable behavior of late pick-ups (Gneezy and Rustichini 2000a, 2000b). It seems as though parents viewed the fine as a price paid for additional daycare service, rather than a punishment for poor behavior! Thus, while punishments can be used to shape positive, prosocial actions, they should be used with care, so as to avoid backfire effects.Feedback is another way to facilitate the formation of positive prosocial habits. Feedback involves receiving information on how one performed on the prosocial action. Receiving feedback on the impact of charitable contributions, for example, has been shown to increase donation intentions (Jackson and Mathews 1995; Merchant, Ford, and Sargeant 2010), donor happiness (Aknin et al. 2013), and perceptions of good service quality from the charity (Shabbir, Palihawadana, and Thwaites 2007). Positive feedback such as receiving thanks or a gift after carrying out prosocial behavior can reinforce the behavior, such as repeated donations (Grant and Gino 2010; Merchant et al. 2010). This reinforcement has been shown to occur even if the feedback is a nonpositive stimulus such as an annoying sound (Hsee, Yang, and Ruan 2015). Feedback is also effective when comparing groups, especially outgroups, that are performing better in a prosocial domain (De Leon and Fuqua 1995; White et al. 2014).Individual SelfIn addition to social and habitual influences, factors linked to the individual consumer can predict prosocial actions. In particular, the self-concept, self-interest, and individual differences are determinants of prosocial consumer behavior that stem from the individual self.Self-ConceptPeople have a desire to maintain a positive view of the self-concept and can reinforce this via consumption (Froming, Nasby, and McManus 1998) and prosocial behavior (Aaker and Akutsu 2009). Consumers are more likely to enhance and maintain a positive image of the self through their prosocial actions when their benefactor identity is salient (Grant and Dutton 2012) and the self is viewed as being changeable (Mathur, Chun, and Maheswaran 2016). People's wish to improve their moral self-worth can lead to increased prosocial activities such as increased donations, greater cooperation, volunteering, and blood donation after recalling past negative behavior (Sachdeva, Iliev, and Medin 2009; Jordan, Mullen, and Murnighan 2011; Blanken, van de Ven, and Zeelenberg 2015).1 However, once they have behaved in a prosocial manner, individuals may feel that they have earned moral credit and be less willing to commit to prosocial behavior in the future. For instance, acting ethically or thinking about how one acted morally in the past can make people less likely to donate blood, to volunteer, or donate to charity (Khan and Dhar 2006; Sachdeva et al. 2009; Jordan et al. 2011) and more likely to cheat or take money from others (Mazar and Zhong 2010).Because people are averse to casting the self-concept in a negative light, instead of refusing to perform a prosocial behavior, they might express lower competence (Liu and Lin 2018), leave the decision up to chance (Lin and Reich 2018), or avoid the possibility of a prosocial request altogether (Lin, Schaumberg, and Reich 2016). Consumers may also distort their perception of the wrongness of an antisocial action (Mazar, Amir, and Ariely 2008), react negatively to learning of the harmful consequences of their own consumption (Feygina, Jost, and Goldsmith 2010), and denigrate other consumers who demonstrate more ethical consumption patterns than they do (Zane, Irwin, and Reczek 2015).Self-InterestAppealing to an individual's self-interest can be another driver of prosociality. While increasing focus on the self can lower engagement in prosocial behaviors (Levontin, Ein-Gar, and Lee 2015), it can also increase charitable donations that rely on feelings (Chang and Hung 2018). The presence of a self-benefit can significantly reduce the opportunity to signal one's altruistic motives (White and Peloza 2009; Feiler, Tost, and Grant 2012; Newman and Cain 2014; Kulow and Kramer 2016; Schlosser and Levy 2016). Because of this, self-benefit appeals to engage in prosocial actions are often less effective than other-benefit or altruistic appeals in public (vs. private) situations (White and Peloza 2009), and mixing self and other-benefit appeals is less effective than when each one is used individually (Feiler et al. 2012). Situations that increase individuals' altruistic self-signals—such as referencing a hedonic rather than utilitarian product that people might purchase instead of donating, or that people might purchase in order to make a charitable donation—can lead to greater donations and cause-related purchases (Strahilevitz 1999; Savary, Goldsmith, and Dhar 2015; Zemack-Rugar et al. 2016).Imposing a self-interested option on consumers, rather than giving them a choice, has been shown to reduce self-reproach and result in greater happiness (Berman and Small 2012). However, emotional benefits to the self are an exception; feeling worse after seeing someone in need and feeling better after helping them are positive signals of moral character (Barasch et al. 2014). Notably, the potential detrimental effects of self-interest can extend to organizations: consumers can view for-profit organizations with a prosocial orientation as self-interested (Lee, Bolton, and Winterich 2017), and corporate social responsibility for self-interested reasons can lead to lower reputational benefits (Newman and Cain 2014; Chernev and Blair 2015).Individual DifferencesIndividual differences are strong predictors of prosocial behaviors; those high in interdependent self-construal (Winterich and Barone 2011; Duclos and Barasch 2014; Allen, Eilert, and Peloza 2018; Simpson et al. 2018), moral identity (Aquino and Reed 2002; Reed and Aquino 2003; Aquino et al. 2007, 2011; Winterich et al. 2013; Reed et al. 2016), collective self-esteem (Shang et al. 2008), religiosity (Stavrova and Siegers 2014), and public self-consciousness (White and Peloza 2009) are more likely to behave prosocially. Moreover, those with female gender identity (Winterich, Mittal, and Ross 2009, 2015), liberal political identity (Kaikati et al. 2017), and from a lower social class (Piff et al. 2010) have been found to demonstrate higher levels of prosocial behavior.Individuals high in moral identity (i.e., whose morality is an important part of their self-concept) are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors (Aquino and Reed 2002; Aquino et al. 2007, 2011; Reed, Aquino, and Levy 2007), particularly toward members of outgroups (Reed and Aquino 2003; Winterich et al. 2009). A focus on communion can lead to greater prosocial behavior; for instance, individuals with an interdependent self-construal (Winterich and Barone 2011; Duclos and Barasch 2014; Winterich et al. 2015; Simpson et al. 2018), female consumers (who tend to be more interdependent; Winterich et al. 2015), and those from a lower social class (Piff et al. 2010) are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior. However, wealthy individuals (Whillans, Caruso, and Dunn 2017) and men (Brunel and Nelson 2000; Nelson et al. 2006) will act more prosocially when the focus of charitable appeals is based in agency and egoistic motives rather than communion and altruistic motives.Individual differences in beliefs, such as belief in a just world (White, MacDonnell, and Ellard 2012), belief in karma (Kulow and Kramer 2016), and power distance beliefs (Winterich and Zhang 2014; Han, Lalwani, and Duhachek 2017) also influence prosocial behavior. For instance, ethical products that promise justice restoration, such as fair trade products, are preferred by consumers with a high belief in a just world, especially when there is a high need for justice restoration (White et al. 2012).Feelings and CognitionThis section explores how individuals can make decisions based on either affective or cognitive criteria. Research suggests that both positive and negative moods and emotions can encourage prosocial actions, but these operate via different mechanisms.Positive Affective StatesFirst, people sometimes are more likely to be helpful and prosocial to others when experiencing positive affective states (Carlson, Charlin, and Miller 1988; Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener 2005). The impact of positive moods is enhanced when they are congruent with the moral objectives of the organization (Goenka and van Osselaer 2019). Thinking about donating time (vs. money) can activate a more emotional (vs. value-maximizing) mindset, which can lead to higher charitable contributions (Liu and Aaker 2008). Other work shows that acting in a prosocial manner by spending money on other people can promote positive affective states such as happiness (Dunn, Aknin, and Norton 2008) and can lead to feelings of a “warm glow” (Andreoni 1990).In addition, specific positive emotions such as awe (Piff et al. 2015), nostalgia (Zhou et al. 2012), inspiration (Liang, Chen, and Lei 2016), gratitude (Bartlett and DeSteno 2006; DeSteno et al. 2010; Grant and Gino 2010), and love (Cavanaugh, Bettman, and Luce 2015) have been linked to prosocial actions. Another specific affective state that has been linked to prosocial behaviors is the moral elevation experienced when observing or hearing about another individual displaying extraordinary moral behavior (Haidt 2000, 2003; Schnall, Roper, and Fessler 2010; Aquino et al. 2011). Taking the literature on positive emotions together, we can conclude that positive emotions are often linked to increases in prosocial behaviors.Negative Affective StatesNegative emotional states can also lead to prosocial actions, an effect that is often driven by the desire to resolve or repair negative affective states (Cialdini et al. 1987). The negative emotion of guilt has been studied extensively in the domain of encouraging prosocial consumer behaviors (Coulter and Pinto 1995; Huhmann and Brotherton 1997; Basil, Ridgway, and Basil 2008; Duhachek, Agrawal, and Han 2012). In general, guilt can motivate prosocial actions like charitable giving and ethical purchasing, but guilt appears to be most effective when it does not activate thoughts of manipulative intent (Hibbert et al. 2007), when a moderate amount of guilt is activated (Coulter and Pinto 1995), and when guilt is more subtly versus explicitly activated (Peloza et al. 2013). Research also suggests that even the anticipation of future guilt can drive ethical decision making and consumer choice (Steenhaut and Van Kenhove 2006; Peloza et al. 2013).EmpathyEmpathy refers to a vicarious emotional response to observing another individual’s circumstances and is often linked to the ability to feel warmth, compassion, and concern for others (Granzin and Olsen 1991; Batson, Batson, et al. 1995; Batson, Klein, et al. 1995). While some authors view empathy as a purely altruistic response to another person’s misfortune (Batson and Shaw 1991), others suggest that empathy is linked to a desire to alleviate personal distress (Cialdini et al. 1987; Mook 1991). In the domain of charitable giving, appeals that activate empathy by both highlighting negative mood states and focusing on