Field study of charitable giving reveals that reciprocity decays over time

Abstract

SignificanceReciprocity motivates a wide range of cooperative behaviors (e.g., tipping, exchange of favors, customer loyalty, etc.). It is typically assumed that, after a reciprocal relationship is triggered, reciprocal motives remain stable over time. Using a large-scale field study, we show that this is not the case. Instead, we find that reciprocity decays rapidly over time. We analyze donation solicitations sent from a university hospital system to its patients and show that patients are less likely to donate when more time has elapsed since they were treated. In addition to informing our understanding of reciprocity, our results have considerable practical importance, as many charitable organizations raise funds from those who they previously served (e.g., schools, hospitals, religious organizations, humane societies, etc.).

The dual-process approach to human sociality: Meta-analytic evidence for a theory of internalized heuristics for self-preservation

“…However, Mrkva (2017) found that time delay, compared to baseline, increases charitable donations, whereas Gärtner (2018) found that time pressure increases self-regarding decisions in the dictator game, but only when the dictator game is presented without a status-quo; by contrast, Gärtner (2018) found that time pressure has no effect on decisions when the statusquo is set on the self-regarding choice or on the altruistic choice. Chuan, Kessler and Milkman (2018) found that 30-day time delay between the provision of medical care and a donation solicitation decreases the likelihood of a donation by 30%. Grolleau, Sutan, El Harbi and Jedidi 2018 Fischbacher, Thöni and Utikal (2014) conducted a series of 20 mini dictator games with varying inequality but keeping the social efficiency constant (100 points for 10 games and 94 for 10 games).…”

The Dual-Process Approach to Human Sociality: A Review

“…However, Mrkva (2017) found that time delay, compared to baseline, increases charitable donations, whereas Gärtner (2018) found that time pressure increases self-regarding decisions in the dictator game, but only when the dictator game is presented without a status-quo; in contrast, Gärtner (2018) found that time pressure has no effect on decisions when the status-quo is on the selfregarding choice or on the altruistic choice. Chuan, Kessler and Milkman (2018) found that 30-day time delay between the provision of medical care and a donation solicitation decreases the likelihood of a donation by 30%. Grolleau, Sutan, El Harbi and Jedidi (2018) found that time delay decreases dictator game giving in Tunisia.…”

The effect of religion on Muslims’ charitable contributions to members of a non‐Muslim majority

“…First, because of our experiment was conducted using paper and pencils, it was extremely complicated and time‐consuming to provide feedback to subjects in the middle of the experiment. Second, we wanted to investigate whether giving behavior may decay over time as documented in other studies (e.g., Chuan, Kessler, & Milkman, ). Giving is often a spontaneous act of generosity, but as time progresses, an individual may rely less on the unconscious and fast‐thinking and rely more on sophisticated and analytical thinking.…”