Setting a Price for Charitable Giving Increases Donations through Self-Concept Maintenance

Many people give to charity, but they typically give very little. We propose that this behavior can be explained by people’s motivation to maintain a positive self-concept. Drawing on the theoretical framework of self-concept maintenance, we propose a new method for increasing charitable donations: setting a price for giving. If donors’ options are limited to giving nothing or giving a large amount, many may choose to give even when the donation amount is substantially larger than what they would have given in a standard unconstrained donation, in order to maintain a positive self-concept as a giver. A series of experiments provide evidence of charitable giving patterns consistent with self-concept maintenance – such that restricting donors’ options to a binary all-or-none donation choice raises substantially more money than an unconstrained donation choice – and provide evidence that self-concept maintenance serves as a mechanism underlying this effect.