Donation to charity and purchase of cause‐related products: The influence of existential guilt and experience

Abstract

Charity donation is an important prosocial behaviour that is often generated/strengthened by emotional stimuli from advertising. A similar strategy is often used to trigger the purchase of cause‐related products. The two activities represent direct and indirect methods of financial support and are important topics for researchers and practitioners. Charity donation and purchase of cause‐related products are typically investigated on the basis of different theoretical backgrounds; therefore, they are almost never directly compared with each other. However, the two share some similarities from the perspectives of the donor/buyer and the donation recipient. This article aims to analyse how direct and indirect donation behaviours are influenced by the same emotional stimulus (existential guilt generated by a visual advertisement). In parallel, this article examines the possible moderation effect of similar past behaviours. The study is performed by surveying 374 respondents in Lithuania. Results confirmed that the same emotion (existential guilt) had a direct positive impact on the intention towards both studied behaviours. However, the moderation effect of experience was observed only in the relationship between existential guilt and the intention to donate to charity, signalling the difference in its influence on the two behaviours. These findings enrich the knowledge of the similarities and differences between direct (donating to charity) and indirect (purchasing cause‐related products) donation behaviours. Additionally, it fills in the knowledge gap regarding the relation between the intentions of prosocial behaviours and existential guilt as an advertising appeal.

Effects of Power and Implicit Theories on Donation

“…Pro-social behavior is defined as the voluntary behavior intended to benefit others (Bierhoff, 2002). This can be direct or indirect in nature (Urbonavicius et al, 2019) and can be in the form of sustainability-related behaviors (Champniss et al, 2016), financial donations (O'Loughlin Banks and Raciti, 2018), blood donations (Pentecost et al, 2017) and purchasing cause-related products (Urbonavicius et al, 2019), amongst others.…”

“…Others may also engage in the behavior for public recognition (Paramita et al, 2020; Wallace et al, 2017). In particular, prior research has showed that emotions can significantly influence pro-social behaviors in differential manners (O'Loughlin Banks and Raciti, 2018; Cialdini and Kenrick, 1976; Pham and Septianto, 2019; Septianto, 2020; Urbonavicius et al, 2019). For example, while both fear and empathy influence donation behavior, empathy leads to larger dollar donations and fear leads to small and medium dollar donations (O'Loughlin Banks and Raciti, 2018).…”

Message framing, non-conscious perception and effectiveness in non-profit advertising. Contribution by neuromarketing research

“…Several research on donations in the non-profit sector found the personal empathy value significant (Basil et al, 2008 ; Bergh & Reinstein, 2020 ; Martinez-levy et al, 2017 ; Verhaert & Van den Poel, 2011 ). In this respect, the impact of empathy on charitable donation intention is fully mediated by guilt responses (Basil et al, 2008 ), and there is a considerable amount of literature on guilt to be another relating factor for an individual's intention to donate to charity (Basil et al, 2008 ; Brennan & Binney, 2010 ; Urbonavicius et al, 2019 ). Identifying individual victims is essential for empathy and willingness to favour those who are suffering (Bleiker et al, 2013 ).…”

Effect of emotional victim images in prosocial advertising: The moderating role of helping mode

“…For example, when a consumer buys one pair of TOMS shoes, the company gives away a free pair to a child in need. Despite the popularity of the two helping modes, no research has compared these two modes with the exception of a recent paper by Urbonavicius, Adomaviciute, Urbutyte, and Cherian (2019). Their study found that the emotion of guilt was impactful under either of the two helping modes.…”