Donors or Victims? The Effect of Matching Charity Appeal Protagonist Focus and Donation Types on Donation Behavior

Abstract

Abstract: Effective charity appeal is one of the main means to promote public participation in donation. Previous studies have explored the influence of different protagonists of charity appeals on observers’ donation behavior, however, different donation types also affect the donation behavior of potential donors, but few studies have explored the impact of the interaction between charitable donation protagonists and donation types on donation behavior. This study explores the influence of the interaction between charity appeal protagonist focus and donation type on the donation behavior, and reveals the moderating effect of the number of protagonists. Experiment 1A firstly verifies that matching charity appeal protagonist focus and donation type would produce differential evaluation on the needs assessment of different donation types, thus providing preliminary evidence for the subsequent research on donation behavior; experiment 1B directly verifies the impact of the matching effect of the charity appeal protagonist focus and donation type on individual donation intention through online questionnaire. Experiment 2 further verifies the effect of matching between the charity appeal protagonist focus and the donation type on individual donation behavior through the assignment of real money in the laboratory experiment, and further elaborates the moderating effect of the number of protagonists. This study aims to provide practical guidance for different types of charitable appeal perspectives, so as to improve the donation behavior of potential donors.

Key words: charity appeal protagonist focus, donation type, number of protagonists, donation behavior

Duan Shen, Liu Fengjun, Li Yuanyuan, Meng Lu. Donors or Victims? The Effect of Matching Charity Appeal Protagonist Focus and Donation Types on Donation Behavior[J]. Management Review, 2023, 35(1): 187-198.

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