Preheating Prosocial Behaviour: How Feeling Happier Increases the Likelihood of Donating to Charity
Key Highlights :
It’s no secret that feeling good can make people more generous and open to giving back to their community. But what if feeling happy could actually make someone more likely to donate to charity? That’s what two economists, Nathan W. Chan and Casey Wichman, found in their new study published in The Economic Journal.
To conduct their research, Chan and Wichman analyzed tweets from over 20,000 Twitter users who used the hashtag “#iloveWikipedia”. This hashtag is part of a template that Wikipedia suggests to anyone who has just completed a donation on its online platform. This allowed the economists to identify people who have given money to the free online encyclopedia edited by volunteers.
Using natural language processing tools, Chan and Wichman assigned a score to each tweet to indicate how positive or negative the mood was for each tweet. For example, a tweet that says “Woohoo! Awesome Pete!” would get a positive sentiment score, while one that says “THIS MADE ME CRY OUT OF ANGER AND SADNESS AND FRUSTRATION.” would get a negative one.
The researchers found that donors’ sentiments became more upbeat up to an hour before they made a gift to support Wikipedia and then declined, becoming more neutral pretty quickly after that. Donors tended to be in especially good moods before making their gifts, but they regressed quickly to their more typical mood afterward.
This phenomenon is known as the “preheating effect”, and it suggests that feeling good could make someone more likely to give to charity. This contrasts with the economic theory that people may give to charity because it makes them feel good about doing the right thing, which is known as a “warm glow”.
The study also noted that while they were able to capture the donors’ real-world moods, it is not possible to tell whether being in a good mood makes people more likely to give to charity, or if feeling happy simply makes donors more likely to tweet about their gifts. Additionally, the study was limited to Twitter users, so it is unknown whether everyone experiences this same preheating effect.
Overall, Chan and Wichman’s research offers new evidence that feeling happy before they’re asked to make a donation makes people more likely to give. This could be a useful insight for fundraisers looking to boost donations, as it suggests that making people feel good before asking for donations could increase the likelihood of them donating.
Ultimately, Chan and Wichman’s research provides valuable insight into the relationship between happiness and charitable giving, and could help fundraisers increase donations and support for their cause.
