When people low in social class become a persuasive source of communication: Social class of other donors and charitable donations

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Abstract

Much of the research on social class suggests that people in the lower (vs. higher) social class increase their portion of charitable giving for others in need. However, little is known about whether observing lower-class people performing charitable giving affects observers’ charitable decision-making. Across five studies, consumers are more willing to donate to charitable campaigns when they are informed that other donors come from lower class backgrounds than from higher class backgrounds. One underlying process for the effect is that lower-class donors serve as an effective source of self-reflection, which in turn increases consumers’ willingness to donate. Further, the effect of lower-class donors on charitable giving is manifested strongly when economic inequality in a society is perceived to be high (vs. low). These findings shed light on the positive influence of lower-class donors on consumers’ charitable decision-making.

Introduction

Then Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” He said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. For they all contributed out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41–44)

According to a news report on charitable giving, American people who earned $200,000 or more decreased the portion of income they donated to charity by 4.5 percent from 2006 to 2012, whereas those who earned $25,000 or less increased the share of income they donated by 16.6 percent during the same time period (Savchuk, 2014). Supporting this evidence, research suggests that social class is associated with charitable giving (for a review, see Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton, Rheinschmidt, & Keltner, 2012). Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, and Keltner (2010) find that people lower (vs. higher) in social class are more concerned about the needs of others and thus are willing to spend a larger proportion of their income on charitable donations. Similarly, Miller, Kahle, and Hastings (2015) find that children in the lower social class donate more resources to anonymous sick children than those in the higher social class. Furthermore, Kraus and Callaghan (2016) demonstrate that lower class people increase their charitable giving in private settings, but higher-class people increase their charitable giving in public settings where reputational concerns are salient.

While these findings provide important implications that people in the lower class, characterized by the relative scarcity of resources, are more willing to give their resources to others in need, one intriguing question that remains underexplored is whether observing those in the lower class engaging in charitable giving would affect observers’ charitable decision-making. It is well documented that people are often affected by others in charitable decision-making. For example, people increase their willingness to donate when they are informed that others also donated (Anik et al., 2014, Croson and Shang, 2008) and that a previous donor who shares their identity made a contribution (Shang et al., 2008, Winterich et al., 2012). We build on these streams of research and highlight the role of social class of others who make donations (hereafter, target donors) in charitable decision-making. As in the passage of Mark’s Gospel in the opening quotation, people encounter a situation in which relatively lower-class individuals make donations to charity. In such a situation, people may compare their own social class with the perceived social class of others, who are not expected to have enough resources to donate. As a result, people may perceive their relative performance on charitable giving to be low and become motivated to improve it.

In the present research, we aim to understand consumers’ charitable giving as a function of social class of target donors. In particular, we propose that those lower (vs. higher) in social class exert a positive influence on consumers’ charitable donations. Building on conceptual perspectives from social class, self-reflection, and economic inequality, we examine how and why information concerning social class of target donors affects charitable giving. We provide novel evidence that consumers increase their propensity to donate to a charity when they are informed that a person whose perceived social class is low made a contribution to the charity. Stated differently, noticing a seemingly lower- (vs. higher-) class person performing an act of giving motivates consumers to perform a similar charitable act. We note that previous research on communication source effects suggests that a spokesperson who is attractive, famous, and high in social status is more persuasive and influential than others in advertising campaigns (Atkin and Block, 1983, Bergkvist and Zhou, 2016, Kamins and Gupta, 1994). However, our research provides evidence countering these source effects shown in advertising research and suggests that such a spokesperson would be less influential for charitable campaigns. In other words, charity fundraisers are more likely to inspire people to make donations by choosing lower (vs. higher) class donors as communication sources in their campaigns. As one way to explain the underlying process of the effect, we document that the pattern of lower class donor effects is driven by self-reflection, the evaluation of one’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors (Grant, Franklin, & Langford, 2002), through which a lower (vs. higher) class donor’s charitable act serves as a mirror of one’s own behavior. We further identify economic inequality as a boundary condition such that the effect of lower-class targets on charitable giving is accentuated when perceived economic inequality is high (vs. low).

Section snippets

Theoretical background

Social class has been one of the widely used factors for market segmentation over the past decades (Kamakura and Mazzon, 2013, Williams, 2002). Social class is conceptualized by objective material resources and corresponding subjective perceptions of relative social standing (Snibbe and Markus, 2005, Stephens et al., 2007). People from different social classes have different levels of access to economic, cultural, and social resources (Bowman et al., 2009, Oakes and Rossi, 2003, Snibbe and

Overview of studies

In five studies, we aim to demonstrate how and why consumers’ charitable giving is contingent on social class of target donors. In Studies 1A and 1B, using a fundraising campaign scenario in which we manipulate social class of target donors, we provide evidence that consumers’ likelihood to make a donation to the campaign increases when consumers are exposed to lower class donors rather than higher class donors. In Study 2, we examine the underlying mechanism of the effect obtained in Studies

Study 1A

In Study 1A, we aim to provide an initial test of whether consumers’ charitable giving would be affected by information concerning social class of target donors. Using a scenario describing a fundraising campaign, we predict that consumers increase their willingness to make a donation to the campaign when social class of the target donor is perceived to be relatively low rather than high.

Study 1B

The objective of Study 1B is to replicate the finding of Study 1A with two modifications. First, we employ a sample of students in a controlled environment. Second, we control for past donation experiences which may affect charitable decision-making. Some studies suggest that people who have previous charitable experiences react more favorably to charitable campaigns (Lindahl and Winship, 1992, Sargeant, 2001), whereas other studies suggest that people reject a donation request from a charity

Study 2

In this study, we offer insight into the process through which social class of target donors affects charitable giving. Specifically, we focus on the mediating role of self-reflection in the effect of target donors’ social class. In addition to testing our prediction, we rule out two potential alternative explanations. First, we examine whether donors’ social class contexts form perceptions of donation motives. Previous research indicates that differences in perceived motives influence consumer

Study 3

In this study, we extend our investigation in three ways. First, we include a baseline (middle class) condition to determine whether the lower (or higher) class of target donors is responsible for an increase in donation. Second, we increase the generalizability by employing a donation campaign from an actual organization. Third, we control for some factors that may affect charitable giving in this study: perceived similarity to a target donor, attitudes toward the charitable organization,2

Study 4

In this study, we examine a potential moderator – perceived economic inequality – that may accentuate the effects of lower-class donors on charitable giving. We predict that the effects observed in our previous studies will be pronounced strongly when people perceive economic inequality in a society as high (vs. low).

General discussion

Across five studies, we provide converging evidence for our theorizing that social class of target donors affects consumers’ charitable giving. Consumers were more likely to make contributions to charitable campaigns when perceived social class of target donors was low rather than high. The pattern of our results remained consistent regardless of perceived similarity to a target donor, attitudes toward a charitable organization and its campaign, importance of a charitable cause, and emotions.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Moon-Kyung Cha is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Myongji University. Dr. Cha obtained her Ph.D. from Seoul National University. Her research interests include consumer responses to cause-related marketing, effects of social class on consumption, and consumer happiness.

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    Moon-Kyung Cha is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Myongji University. Dr. Cha obtained her Ph.D. from Seoul National University. Her research interests include consumer responses to cause-related marketing, effects of social class on consumption, and consumer happiness.

    Youjae Yi is Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration at Seoul National University. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Business Research, and other journals. He has served as president of Korean Marketing Association, Korean Society of Consumer Studies, and Service Marketing Association.

    Jaehoon Lee is Assistant Professor of Marketing and Logistics in the College of Business at Florida International University. His research mainly focuses on consumer behavior in the contexts of social class, social exclusion, cultural orientation, and materialism. His research has appeared in Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Human Communication Research, as well as in book chapters. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Marketing from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

    This research project was supported by the 2019 Research Fund of Myongji University.

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