The impact of anger on donations to victims

Abstract

This article investigates if and when anger appeals (communications that elicit anger in people), can be used to increase donations to charity. In an experimental study the idea was tested that anger leads to higher charitable donations, under the condition that people can restore equity with that donation (i.e., restore the harm done to the victim). Results indeed show that when one's donation serves a specific restorative function (i.e., compensates the suffering of women so that they can start a new life) as compared to a non-restorative function (i.e., offers help in special crisis centers for women, to alleviate their suffering and not worsen their situation), angry participants donated more to charity. This difference was absent when people did not experience anger. Furthermore, angry people donated more to the restorative charity than people not experiencing this emotion. The effect of anger on charitable donations occurred independently from people's empathic concern. These results thus suggest that anger can act as an emotional appeal in soliciting charitable donations.

Empathy leads to increased online charitable behaviour when time is the currency

“…In other words, when individuals feel anger at an injustice another faces (as was the case in the video used here), this will induce empathy that can be alleviated by subsequent prosocial behaviour. Similar effects of feelings related to anger have been found previously (Lyer, Schmader, & Lickel, ; Montado & Schneider, ; van Doorn, Zeelenberg, & Breugelmans, ); however, the current finding differs somewhat in that the prosocial behaviour here had no direct connection to the cause of individuals' anger. Therefore, it is perhaps no surprise that similar results were found with regards to time spent donating rice to charity for individuals induced with empathy and anger and that this was significantly more than for individuals who were not induced with either emotion, although why this is a different finding to Farrelly et al () who used the same methods but with hypothetical scenarios remains unclear.…”

The Effect of Emotion on Prosocial Tendency: The Moderating Effect of Epidemic Severity Under the Outbreak of COVID-19

“…The combined effect of anger and threat resulted in individuals' inclination to empathize, learning about the threat posed by the potentially dangerous environmental events, and engaging in prosocial behaviors (Silk and House, 2011). This finding further demonstrates that anger can be used to elicit prosocial behavior to counterbalance the disadvantageous position in which victims find themselves (Iyer et al, 2007;van Doorn et al, 2017).…”

An exploration of third parties’ preference for compensation over punishment: six experimental demonstrations

“…However, cases where they observe that someone else receives an unjust treatment, reactions to restore justice are more diverse (Gromet and Darley 2009 ). The current literature on reactions to injustice by third parties posits that there are two ways an observer might react: observers could either punish the perpetrator or compensate the victim (e.g., Adams and Mullen 2015 ; Chavez and Bicchieri 2013 ; Darley and Pittman 2003 ; FeldmanHall et al 2014 ; Leliveld et al 2012 ; Lotz et al 2011 ; Van Doorn et al 2014 , 2017 ; Van Doorn et al 2018 ; Van Prooijen 2010 ; Van de Vyver and Abrams 2015 ).…”