Giving People Simple “Moral Nudges” Encourages Them To Donate Much More To Charity

By Emma Young How do you persuade people to do the “right thing” when there’s a personal price to pay? What convinces someone to spend time and effort on a task like recycling batteries, for example — or literally spend cash by giving to people in desperate need? It’s an important question. “Finding mechanisms to promote pro-social behaviour is fundamental for the wellbeing of our societies and is more urgent than ever in a time of key global challenges such as resource conservation, climate change and social inequalities,” write the authors of a new paper, published in Scientific Reports. Across a series of five online studies involving a total of more than 3,000 participants, Valerio Capraro at Middlesex University of London and colleagues provide evidence for a cheap, effective method: simply “nudging” people to reflect on what is the morally right thing to do. This simple intervention had some impressive effects, even increasing actual charitable donations by close to half. The first study involved a simple test of altruistic behaviour. The researchers gave US-based participants 20 cents each and told them they were paired with someone else who had nothing. Right before being told that they could donate any part of that 20 cent pot to their (fictional) partner, one group was asked, “What do you personally think is the morally right thing to do in this situation?” Another was asked, “What do you think your society considers to be the morally right...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: environmental Money Social Source Type: blogs