IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lau/crdeep/21.01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Oops! I Did It Again: Understanding Mechanisms of Persistence in Prosocial Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Adrian Bruhin
  • Lorenz Goette
  • Simon Haenni
  • Lingqing Jiang

Abstract

We test whether asking individuals to donate blood leads to a persistent change in behavior, and examine the underlying mechanism. In a field experiment, we randomize a phone call, asking blood donors to turn out, and follow them over up to 18 months. We observe significant behavioral persistence for at least one year. We use naturally occurring rainfall as a second instrument for donor turnout to test whether behavioral persistence is due to habit formation (Stigler and Becker, 1977) or a persistent increase in motivation independent of past donation. Our results strongly favor habit formation as the underlying mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian Bruhin & Lorenz Goette & Simon Haenni & Lingqing Jiang, 2020. "Oops! I Did It Again: Understanding Mechanisms of Persistence in Prosocial Behavior," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 21.01, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    • Handle: RePEc:lau:crdeep:21.01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unil.ch/de/files/live/sites/de/files/working-papers/21.01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sharon Maccini & Dean Yang, 2009. "Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1006-1026, June.
    2. James Andreoni & Justin M. Rao & Hannah Trachtman, 2017. "Avoiding the Ask: A Field Experiment on Altruism, Empathy, and Charitable Giving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(3), pages 625-653.
    3. Milkman, Katherine L. & Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2012. "Following through on Good Intentions: The Power of Planning Prompts," Working Paper Series rwp12-024, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Andreoni, James & Rao, Justin M., 2011. "The power of asking: How communication affects selfishness, empathy, and altruism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 513-520.
    5. Stephan Meier, 2007. "Do Subsidies Increase Charitable Giving in the Long Run? Matching Donations in a Field Experiment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(6), pages 1203-1222, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adena, Maja & Hager, Anselm, 2020. "Does online fundraising increase charitable giving? A nation-wide field experiment on Facebook," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2020-302, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. James Andreoni & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2021. "The Pledging Puzzle: How Can Revocable Promises Increase Charitable Giving?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 6198-6210, October.
    3. Jan Schmitz, 2021. "Is Charitable Giving a Zero-Sum Game? The Effect of Competition Between Charities on Giving Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 6333-6349, October.
    4. Grieder, Manuel & Schmitz, Jan & Schubert, Renate, 2024. "Asking to give: coordinated fundraising and giving," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302438, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Andreoni, James & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2021. "Time inconsistent charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    6. Meer, Jonathan, 2017. "Does fundraising create new giving?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 82-93.
    7. Ortiz-Riomalo, Juan Felipe & Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Engel, Stefanie, 2021. "Inducing perspective-taking for prosocial behaviour in natural resource management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Gallier, Carlo & Goeschl, Timo & Kesternich, Martin & Lohse, Johannes & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2023. "Inter-charity competition under spatial differentiation: Sorting, crowding, and spillovers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 457-468.
    9. Owens, Mark F. & Rennhoff, Adam D. & Baum, Charles L., 2018. "Consumer demand for charitable purchases: Evidence from a field experiment on Girl Scout Cookie sales," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 47-63.
    10. Adena, Maja & Hakimov, Rustamdjan & Huck, Steffen, 2019. "Charitable giving by the poor: A field experiment on matching and distance to charitable output in Kyrgyzstan," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2019-305, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    11. Maja Adena & Rustamdjan Hakimov & Steffen Huck, 2024. "Charitable Giving by the Poor: A Field Experiment in Kyrgyzstan," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 633-646, January.
    12. Robert Neumann, 2019. "The framing of charitable giving: A field experiment at bottle refund machines in Germany," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(1), pages 98-126, February.
    13. Kimberley Scharf & Sarah Smith & Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2022. "Lift and Shift: The Effect of Fundraising Interventions in Charity Space and Time," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 296-321, August.
    14. Benabou, Roland & Jaroszewicz, Ania & Loewenstein, George, 2022. "It Hurts to Ask," IZA Discussion Papers 15576, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ugur, Zeynep B., 2021. "Does Self-Control Foster Generosity? Evidence from Ego Depleted Children," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    16. Bruttel, Lisa & Stolley, Florian, 2020. "Getting a yes. An experiment on the power of asking," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. David Fielding & Stephen Knowles, 2015. "Can you spare some change for charity? Experimental evidence on verbal cues and loose change effects in a Dictator Game," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 718-730, December.
    18. Exley, Christine L. & Petrie, Ragan, 2018. "The impact of a surprise donation ask," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 152-167.
    19. Mostafa Shahen & Koji Kotani & Tatsuyoshi Saijo, 2020. "How do individuals behave in the intergenerational sustainability dilemma? A strategy method experiment," Working Papers SDES-2020-1, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised May 2020.
    20. Kotsadam, Andreas & Somville, Vincent, 2024. "Wealth and charitable giving – Evidence from an Ethiopian lottery," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prosocial behavior; Habit formation; Field experiment; Natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lau:crdeep:21.01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christina Seld (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deelsch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.