The Effect of Participation Rate by Others on an Individual’s Charitable Behavior: The Role of Prominence of Group Identity

Charitable organizations often use the high participation rate of others to influence potential donors, with announcements such as “Nearly 70% of people who were asked to donate have contributed to the campaign.” For instance, pro-social messages, such as charity and volunteering campaigns, often use the participation rate of others to influence potential donors, with announcements such as “Nearly 70% of people who were asked to donate have contributed to the campaign” or “In the latest Canada Survey of Giving, 85% of Albertans reported having donated to a charity or nonprofit organization in 2007.” In the context of charitable behavior, the participation rate of others can be defined as one’s perception of how many others have been helping or donating in a specific predicament. Many participation-encouraging messages have been informed by the participation rate by others giving a donation. In this present research, we are interested in examining how the participation rate of others can influence an individual’s charitable behavior. In present research, we examine how such high participation rate of others influences an individual’s charitable behavior. We propose a moderator, namely prominence of group identity that determines the impact of high participation rates of others on an individual’s charitable behavior. Our research makes several contributions to the literature on participation of participation in the context of charitable behavior. First, we identify new moderator of the effect of other’s participation on charitable behavior, namely prominence of group identity. That is, when the prominence of group identity was not activated, the high participation rate of others had negative effect on individual charitable behavior. In contrast, when the prominence of group identity was activated, the high participation rate of others had positive effect on individual charitable behavior. Past research on a range of pro-social behaviors has found that other’s participation has a positive effect on target individuals in terms of encouraging the behavior in question. We qualify this general effect by identifying the condition where other’s participation has either a positive or a negative effect on charitable behavior. To our knowledge, our moderator of the prominence of group identity is the important identified boundary condition for the effectiveness of other’s participation. Second, we extend past research on other’s participation by developing a broader conceptual framework that includes the reduced responsibility. In summary, our results suggest that high participation rate of others increases an individual’s charitable behavior only when the salience of group identity is high.

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