Reward programs and incentive plans are popular methods of increasing desired behaviors in applied settings. Yet, opponents of "carrot and stick" interventions claim these programs are perceived as controlling and as a result are counterproductive to people's intrinsic motivation to emit a desired response. The current research studied intrinsic motivation theory in a community setting by combining written commitments with external rewards, and manipulating the time at which the reward was delivered (either prior to or subsequent to task completion). It was found that written commitments only had no effect on the rate at which the target response was emitted. Written commitments combined with contingent rewards increased the rate of responding during intervention, but upon withdrawal, response rates dropped significantly below baseline. Written commitments in combination with non-contingent rewards, offered in advance, increased response rates during intervention and were more effective in maintaining responding after the withdrawal of all contingencies. Additionally ~ the current research used the Actively Caring (A C) Model (Geller, 1991) in an attempt to predict who would be more likely to emit the AC target response. The model did not successfully predict the rates at which the target response would be emitted. The implications of this research are discussed from the theories of behavior analysis, intrinsic motivation, and equity. Directions for future studies of intrinsic motivation in applied settings are also offered. / Master of Science

This dissertation consists of three essays in development economics. The first chapter studies the effects of migrant remittances on economic development and education investments. The second chapter examines the drivers of charitable donations on an online charity platform. The third chapter studies the political economy of education in Indonesia, where the state competes with religious schools to provide education services. In the first chapter, I study the effects of remittances on development indicators and education investments in Indonesian districts. I use the interaction between local outmigration patterns and country-specific exchange rate shocks to identify the effects of remittances. I find that remittances increase household consumption, reduce poverty, and stimulate growth. Remittance recipients are able to send more children to school, thereby prompting district governments to increase public schools at the primary and junior secondary levels. The state also increases provisions of other public goods that complement household investments. These responses to remittances are not driven by electoral concern or the capture of economic gain through taxation, but rather pre-existing policy commitments and changes in government accountability. In the second chapter (joint with Gedeon Lim and Yohanes Eko Riyanto), we study the optimal way to elicit online donations in a developing country setting. We investigate the impact of randomizing choice set size and the randomization of beneficiary characteristics on the propensity and size of donations in the context of a Covid-19 mutual aid platform in Indonesia. We find that users assigned to a smaller choice set of potential beneficiaries are more likely to make a donation. This leads to higher average donations in smaller choice set groups as compared to larger choice set groups. Remarkably, we find no significant decrease in the amount transferred per donation. Our results suggest that donors are susceptible to choice overload. In the third chapter (joint with Samuel Bazzi and Benjamin Marx), we study the competition in the education market between the state and Islam community in Indonesia. We develop a new theoretical framework to understand how states take over education markets at the expense of alternative providers. We apply this model to a primary school expansion policy in 1970s Indonesia that aimed to homogenize and secularize education, at odds with a longstanding and largely informal Islamic school system. Using novel administrative data, we identify dynamic effects of the policy on education markets. Funded through growth in charitable giving and informal taxation, Islamic schools entered new markets, formalized, and introduced more religious curriculum to compete with the state. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased overall as Islamic secondary schools absorbed increased demand for continued education. Exposed cohorts are not more attached to secular values and instead report greater religiosity. Our findings offer a new perspective on the consequences of education reforms and the persistence of dual institutional systems across numerous settings.

The news media is the most common way for individuals to obtain information about a vast range of events. The purpose of the present study was to better understand what factors predict people's news media patterns, including mental health, personality factors, and propensity for altruism. This study investigated whether certain media patterns correlate with higher pathology in viewers. Participants were asked to complete an informal survey in which they provided information about their news patterns in general, and then specifically about their news media pattern when obtaining information about the Haitian crisis. The Haitian crisis served as an example of a crisis event broadcasted by a wide variety 9f news media outlets including local news, cable news, magazines, and internet sources. Additional measures in the study include the Symptom-Checklist-90 (SCL-90) self-report scale as a measure of psychopathology, the Civic Moral Disengagement Scale (CMDs), and the self-report Altruism Measure. It was predicted that participants who accessed news about the disaster through sources that presented a political agenda rather than just reporting the news, would score higher on psychopathology and lower Qn altruism. Although there was no significant correlation between news media patterns and psychopathology, a correlation between news media patterns and altruistic behavior was found. Personality factors were also significantly correlated to altruistic behavior and media choice. The findings of this study open the doors to further studies in the field of media, personality, and altruistic behavior. Implications of the findings, as well as need for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this experiment was to measure participants' normative judgment and willingness to help a woman who is being assaulted by a man.

Bengtsson, M. En hoppfull strävan. En fallstudie om ideellt engagemang inom suicidpreventivt arbete i Sverige. Masteruppsats i Socialt Arbete, 30 högskolepoäng. Malmö Universitet: Fakulteten för hälsa och samhälle, institutionen för socialt arbete, 2023.  Denna studie tar avstamp i det nationella suicidpreventiva arbetet i Sverige och vänder sedan blicken mot de ideella organisationernas roll i frågan. Syftet är mer specifikt att analysera den ideella organisationen Minds arbete som aktör i det nationella suicidpreventiva arbetet. Genom att se till suicidprevention i landet och ta del av organisationen Minds arbete utgör denna uppsats en fallstudie av kvalitativ sort till sin karaktär, något som möjliggör att fokusera på en enda organisation. Det teoretiska ramverket för denna studie utgörs av interaktiv samhällsstyrning och altruism, det är med hjälp av dessa begrepp som studiens textanalys genomförts och sammanställts. Studien har visat på att det finns ett omfattande ideellt engagemang inom det suicidpreventiva arbetet i Sverige, där Minds arbete spelar en avgörande roll. Resultatet visar även att det finns utmaningar för samverkan samt den enskilda ideella organisationen när interaktiv samhällsstyrning blir en del av socialt arbete. I den behovsanalys som utgår från nuvarande nationella strategi för suicidprevention, som ligger till grund för den förnyade handlingsplan som förväntas komma under senare halvan av 2023 betonas samverkan mellan olika aktörer. Det går att se att det finns en ökad medvetenhet kring de ideella organisationernas gärning inom svårlösta sociala frågor såsom suicid, och att det pågår ett arbete för att på ett bättre sätt integrera detta i den nationella strategi för suicidprevention som ska presenteras för riksdagen i år. / Bengtsson, M. A hopeful endeavor. A casestudy about non-profit involvement in suicide prevention in Sweden. Degree project in social work, 30 credits. Malmö University: Faculty of Health and Society, Department of social work, 2023.  This study is based on the national suicide prevention programe in Sweden and turns its gaze to the role of non-profit organizations. The purpose is to analyze the non-profit organization Mind and their work within national suicide prevention. This essay constitutes a qualitative case study, something that allows us to focus on a single organization. The theoretical framework for this study consists of governance and altruism, it is with the help of these theories that the analysis is carried out and compiled. The study shows that there is an extensive non-profit involvement in suicide precention in Sweden, where Mind plays an important role. Results also show that there are challenges in collaboration and within the individual non-profit organization itself when governance becomes a bigger part of social work. In the making of a new national suicide prevention program an analysis of the needs in the current national strategy has been presented. In this analysis cooperation between different actors within the field is emphasized. There seems to be an increased awareness of the work of non-profit organizations in social work and complex issues such as suicideprevention in the new national strategy which is set to be presented in the latter half of 2023.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Management and Information Systems. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Syftet för studien var att skapa förståelse kring ideellt engagemang i välgörenhetsprojekt och viktiga aspekter som motiverar dessa personer. Resultatet kan användas av organisationer, föreningar och personer med ledande funktioner för att motivera och leda ideella deltagare. För att besvara syftet formulerades forskningsfrågan: Vad motiverar deltagare till att gå med i och fullfölja ideella välgörenhetsprojekt? Tillvägagångssättet som användes var en kvalitativ fallstudie där intervjuer användes som datainsamlingsmetod, materialet bearbetades sedan genom en tematisk analys. Studien visade att inre motivation i form av en utmaning och en vilja att göra gott var det som fick deltagarna att gå med, under projektet blev det mer komplext och motivationen kunde förändras under tid. De viktigaste motiven till att fullfölja var gemenskapen i laget, att kunna utmana sig själv, regelbundna framsteg och att det välgörande syftet var något starkt att kämpa för

Unresolved global problems, such as extreme poverty, ask for a better understanding of what predicts altruism and what does not. The aim of this thesis project was to address this topical and timely research question by studying the predictive role of compassion and empathy in understanding altruism. In past research on the relationship between altruism and empathy, distinct empathic processes (Perspective taking, Empathic concern, Personal distress, Emotional contagion, and Behavioral contagion) have been often lumped together and the context dependency of the relationship has been insufficiently taken into account, resulting in confusion and contradictory findings. Compassion overcomes these issues. The present web-based survey with previous or current university students (age 18-45; N=240) aimed to clarify relationships between components of empathy, compassion, and altruism. It was hypothesized that (1) compassion would predict altruism beyond all components of empathy; (2) Empathic concern would mediate the relationship between Perspective taking and altruism; (3) compassion would mediate the relationship between Empathic concern and altruism, and (4) higher levels of compassion would result in a reduced negative relationship between Personal distress and altruism. The results supported all hypotheses except for the final one. These findings are discussed in context of previous research and theory, considering the current study limitations and with focus on theoretical and practical implications. In sum, the findings suggest that efforts to motivate altruism should focus on invoking positive emotions of warmth, concern, and relatability. Care should be taken to avoid unnecessary Personal distress when invoking altruism, as this reduces its likelihood.

This paper concerns journalists who work within the private sector and the wideness of struggles in Polish journalism today. The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of professional identity and if it has changed as a result of the recent governmental intervention in national media laws and regulations. Through a qualitative-interviews with ten Polish journalists on four respected newspapers (Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Newsweek, Polityka) in Warsaw, we collected answers based on questions about altruism and the current political situation in the country. The study relates to Polish history and the context of media models, in which we have primarily applied the media models developed by the media scientists Hallin and Mancini (2004). Our result suggests that our participants have gained a higher level of altruism since the newly introduced media laws took affect in Poland in January 7th, 2016. It further suggests that the working climate for the interviewees today is challenging and versatile. The interviewed journalists have noticed economic difficulties for Polish journalism and describes a grand polarization between journalists in the private sector.

Thesis (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis an attempt is made to sketch the outlines of a cognitive theory of ethics, i.e. a theory in which ethical statements are a subset of descriptive statements. It is argued that the good is a quale, and that this quale roughly corresponds to what is often referred to as "pleasure". If this conceptualisation of the good is correct, then the resulting ethical theory is a cognitive, egoist version of ethical hedonism. The thesis proceeds by relating this conceptualisation of the good to economic phenomena. An investigation is then made of the conditions under which the following of a boundedly rational rule is preferable to calculating which one of the possible options available to the actor to follow. It is argued that one such rule is that "truth" should serve as a norm of inquiry. Next the issue of "altruism" is considered. It is argued that our intuitions regarding what egoist action should be are radically untrustworthy. Considerations from evolutionary biology and game theory make it clear that an egoist actor might well be best advised to perform a number of actions that would normally be termed altruistic. The next topic concerns the relation between fact and value. Arguments that claim to undermine the distinction between fact and value are argued to be fallacious. It is also argued that the correct view of the relation between fact and value can help to clarify some of the problems surrounding the conceptualisation of "objectivity". The thesis ends by considering the gains that arise from adopting the position argued for. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie tesis word 'n poging aangewend om 'n kognitiwe teorie van etiek, m.a.w 'n teorie waarbinne etiese stellings 'n subspesie van deskriptiewe stellings is, daar te stel. Daar word geargumenteer dar "die goeie" 'n quale is, en dat hierdie quale rofweg dieselfde objek is as wat dikwels na verwys word as plesier. Indien hierdie siening van "die goeie" korrek is, dan impliseer dit die moontlikheid van 'n kognitiewe, egoïstiese weergawe van etiese hedonisme. Die tesis poog eerstens om die verhouding tussen hierdie siening van "die goeie" en ekonomise fenomene te verduidelik. Daarna word ondersoek ingestel na die kondisies waaronder die volg van 'n begrensde rasionele reël 'n beter opsie vir 'n akteur is as om an al die moontlike opsies te kyk en die beste te kies. Daar word geargumenteer dat die idee dat die "waarheid" die doel van ondersoek moet wees een so 'n reël is. Volgende word daar gekyk na die kwessie van altruïsme. Daar word geargumenteer dat ons intuïsies insake die aard van egoïstiese optrede radikaalonbetroubaar is. Sekere kwessies in evolusionêre biologie en spelteorie laat dit blyk dat 'n egoïstiese akteur waarskynlik verskeie oënskynlik "altruïstiese" aksies behoort uit te voer. Die volgende kwessie wat bespreek word is die verhouding tussen feite en waardes. Daar word geargumenteer dat pogings om hierdie onderskeid te ondermyn nie suksesvol is nie. Daar word verder geargumenteer dat die korrekte siening insake hierdie verhouding sekere probleme insake die verstaan van "obkjektiwiteit" kan ophelder. Die tesis eindig deur die voordele wat uit spruit uit die aanvaarding van die posisie wat hier voor geargumenteer word. / National research Foundation (NRF)