The effects of social information on volunteering:: a field experiment
The effects of social information on volunteering:: a field experiment
Research indicates that providing social information about other people’s charitable donations can increase individual contributions. However, the effects of social information on volunteering time are underexplored. In this field experiment, we measure the effects of different levels of feedback about other people’s time contributions (very high, high, and moderate) on individuals’ hours of volunteering. The experiment was conducted with students from English universities volunteering for a variety of organizations and with a group of predominantly older people volunteering for a national charity in England. Social information did not increase volunteering for either group relative to a control group receiving individualized feedback with no social comparison. For students whose baseline volunteering time was lower than the median, social information had a demotivating effect, reducing their volunteering, suggesting that donating time is different to donating money.
583-603
Moseley, Alice
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James, Oliver
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John, Peter
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Richardson, Liz
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Ryan, Matthew
f07cd3e8-f3d9-4681-9091-84c2df07cd54
Stoker, Gerard
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1 June 2018
Moseley, Alice
0da467e1-d68e-4d9a-b20e-5b2ca73fc6b2
James, Oliver
b7392e2f-8a57-492a-8c86-ead1eec80c98
John, Peter
7f349277-6dac-49ab-9948-1af16f0655e1
Richardson, Liz
c4e98c2a-9051-43f3-be61-542e4df98dc1
Ryan, Matthew
f07cd3e8-f3d9-4681-9091-84c2df07cd54
Stoker, Gerard
209ba619-6a65-4bc1-9235-cba0d826bfd9
Moseley, Alice, James, Oliver, John, Peter, Richardson, Liz, Ryan, Matthew and Stoker, Gerard
(2018)
The effects of social information on volunteering:: a field experiment.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 47 (3), .
(doi:10.1177/0899764017753317).
Abstract
Research indicates that providing social information about other people’s charitable donations can increase individual contributions. However, the effects of social information on volunteering time are underexplored. In this field experiment, we measure the effects of different levels of feedback about other people’s time contributions (very high, high, and moderate) on individuals’ hours of volunteering. The experiment was conducted with students from English universities volunteering for a variety of organizations and with a group of predominantly older people volunteering for a national charity in England. Social information did not increase volunteering for either group relative to a control group receiving individualized feedback with no social comparison. For students whose baseline volunteering time was lower than the median, social information had a demotivating effect, reducing their volunteering, suggesting that donating time is different to donating money.
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Accepted/In Press date: 27 November 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 January 2018
Published date: 1 June 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 417158
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/417158
ISSN: 0899-7640
PURE UUID: 7219c08b-c389-41f9-9c31-bfc3d15109d8
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Date deposited: 22 Jan 2018 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 04:02
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Author:
Alice Moseley
Author:
Oliver James
Author:
Peter John
Author:
Liz Richardson
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