Across three experiments, I demonstrate that when for-profit organizations focus on the emotional aspects of fund-raising appeals, the evaluations of their appeal decline and they are unsuccessful in generating positive donation intentions; however, this is not the case for nonprofit organizations. In particular, experiment 1 reveals that affective, emotional appeals are viewed more favorably by consumers when they are connected with nonprofit organizations; in contrast, rational, unemotional appeals have greater favorability when they are associated with for-profit organizations. This interaction effect is mediated by the processing fluency, in which the nonprofit organization concepts (vs. for-profit concepts) are congruent with the emotional dimensions of the fund-raising content, causing an ease of processing and positive appeal evaluations. In experiment 2, I find converging evidence that people tend to place little weight on their actual emotional responses in making donation decisions when a for-profit organization is involved. Consumers tend to exhibit a donation flatline, displaying equivalent donation behavior regardless of the actual emotional experiences involved. In experiment 3, I further demonstrate that people's memory performance actually becomes impaired when a high-intensity negative emotional appeal is presented by a for-profit organization but not when it is presented by a nonprofit organization, which again reveals that for-profit organizations’ use of emotional appeals to connect with consumers' affective feelings may backfire. I argue that this is because the activation of for-profit concepts (vs. nonprofit concepts) gives rise to the cognitive system (vs. the affective system), leading people to regulate their emotions via suppression in order to conduct a careful assessment of the appeal content; this results in a donation flatline.

Although the non-profit sector is now the third largest sector of the global economy, relatively little is known about the psychological processes that underlie decisions to donate to charity. Across five experiments, the present research explores two factors that are thought to underlie giving: social norms and personal values. Study 1 elicits personal values and manipulates descriptive social norm information and finds that both of these factors influence giving behavior. Study 2 replicates these findings with injunctive norms in place of descriptive norms. Study 3 manipulates both descriptive and injunctive social norms within a single study and finds that while both have an influence on giving, they do not interact in any meaningful way with each other. Study 4 manipulates descriptive and injunctive norm information in the context of a realistic online donation decision and finds that both injunctive norms influence rates of giving, but that descriptive norm information alone influences willingness to give. Study 5 experimentally manipulates the costs and benefits associated with viewing social information and finds that while participants are willing to view social information when there are no associated costs, willingness to view information decreases dramatically under even very small costs. We conclude in Chapter 6 by discussing the implications of these findings and potential directions for future research.

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Older adults have been shown to avoid negative and prefer positive information to a higher extent than younger adults. This positivity bias influences their information processing as well as decision-making. We investigate age-related positivity bias in charitable giving in two studies. In Study 1 we examine motivational factors in monetary donations, while Study 2 focuses on the emotional effect of actual monetary donations. In Study 1, participants (n = 353, age range 20-74 years) were asked to rate their affect toward a person in need and then state how much money they would be willing to donate to help this person. In Study 2, participants (n = 108, age range 19-89) were asked to rate their affect toward a donation made a few days prior. Regression analysis was used to investigate whether or not the positivity bias influences the relationship between affect and donations. In Study 1, we found that older adults felt more sympathy and compassion and were less motivated by negative affect when compared to younger adults, who were motivated by both negative and positive affect. In Study 2, we found that the level of positive emotional reactions from monetary donations was higher in older participants compared to younger participants. We find support for an age-related positivity bias in charitable giving. This is true for motivation to make a future donation, as well as affective thinking about a previous donation. We conclude that older adults draw more positive affect from both the planning and outcome of monetary donations and hence benefit more from engaging in monetary charity than their younger counterparts. (authors' abstract)

Betrayal trauma theory (see Freyd, 1996) posits betrayal events often require "betrayal blindness" in order to limit awareness or memory of information regarding the betrayal. This occurs in order to maintain a connection that is necessary for survival. BTT may be applied to events that generally would not be considered traumatic, such as adultery or discrimination. In order to maintain connections within relationships, institutions, and social systems upon which there is a dependency, people (acting as victims, perpetrators, and witnesses) may show betrayal blindness. This dissertation consists of two studies investigating betrayal blindness and betrayal trauma history as they relate to charitable behavior. Study 1 included 467 college students at the University of Oregon who completed self-report measures of trauma history and a behavioral measure requesting a hypothetical donation. Contributions were requested for three scenarios that varied in level of betrayal: natural disaster, external genocide, and internal genocide. Results indicated no significant main effects for trauma history or type of event. However, people were less willing to donate to the group of recipients and the genocide conditions at low levels of emotional arousal. Additionally, those who have experienced high betrayal traumas also were less likely to donate at low emotional response values. Given the lack of significant findings in this experiment, a second study was conducted using a repeated measures design. Study 2 involved 634 undergraduate students at the University of Oregon. In addition to the measures from Study 1, participants also completed additional self-report measures assessing trait measures of prosocial tendencies, social desirability, personality, emotion regulation, and betrayal awareness. There were no main effects on charitable behavior for personality traits, prosociality, emotion regulation, social desirability, or betrayal awareness. Significant order effects were observed when comparing the type of event and betrayal level of event. A between-subjects approach revealed people donated less money to the higher betrayal versions of both types of scenarios. Across both studies, increased affect, particularly guilt, was associated with more charitable behavior. Although there are several limitations of these studies, the findings represent an important first step exploring prosocial behavior within a betrayal trauma framework.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on February 1, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Marketing, School of Business. At head of title: University of Alberta. Spring 2010. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2002. / UMI number: 3060191. Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-257). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Köln, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-333).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-62). Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Kiel.