The Psychology of Giving: The TimeAsk Effect

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The Psychology of GivingThe Time-Ask Effect

• Collaborators
• Toshi Akutsu (UC Berkeley)
• Wendy Liu (UC Los Angeles)
• Cassie Mogilner (Stanford)
• Kathleen Vohs (Minnesota)

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Thought Experiment

• Are you interested in making a donation?
• Are you interested in volunteering your time?

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Thought Experiment

• Condition A
• Are you interested in making a donation?
• Are you interested in volunteering your time?

• Condition B
• Are you interested in volunteering your time?
• Are you interested in making a donation?

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Two Types of Ask
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Raised Questions

• What types of mindsets are activated when one
  thinks about time vs. money
• How might shift in mindset impact willingness to
  give
• Does activating time vs. money lead to
  differential awareness of what makes an
  individual happy?

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Charitable Giving

• Giving is a 300 Billion industry in U.S.
• Giving USA Foundation 2007
• Encouraging donations single most important
  challenge
• Top reason for giving because I was asked by
  someone

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Giving and Personal Well-Being

• People consume with goal of getting happier, but
  rarely attain goal
• Dunn, Aknin and Norton 2008
• Giving tied to happiness
• Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, Schkade, 2005
  Piliavin, 2003

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Question-Behavior Effect

• Effect of measuring intentions
• Sherman 1980, Feldman and Lynch 1988, Schwarz
  1999 Flynn and Lake 2008 Johnson, Häubl, and
  Keinan 2007 Cryder and Loewenstern 2008
• Mere measurement can change likelihood of
  actually engaging in behavior
• Morwitz, Johnson and Schmittlein 1993, Fitzsimons
  and Morwitz 1996
• Mechanisms
• Attitude activation (Nedungadi 1990)
• Mental simulation (Levav and Fitzsimons 2006)

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Money

• Money puts a quantifiable value to purchase,
  likely to evoke a value-maximizing goal
• When people invest money, they demand unambiguous
  satisfaction from consumption. When they invest
  time, more flexible in determining whether
  consumption worth time
• Okada and Hoch 2004
• When prompted to think about money, increased
  independence, reduced engagement with others
• Vohs, Mead and Goode 2006

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Money Screensaver
Vohs, Goode and Mead (2006)
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Control Screensaver
Control Screensaver
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Social Distance
People are told they will be engaging in a
conversation task with another person. They are
lead into a room with one chair asked to pull up
another chair while the experimenter retrieves
the other person.
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Results
Vohs, Goode and Mead (2006)
Vohs, Mead and Goode (2006) Science
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Time

• Both real and imagined temporal experiences
  accompanied by emotions How do I feel about it
• Schwarz Clore 1996 Pham 1998
• Experiential (vs. material) purchases more
  associated with feeling happy
• Van Bovan and Gilovich 2003
• Salience of time in life can activate goals of
  emotional meaning
• Carstenson, Isaacovich and Charles 1999, Lau-Gesk
  and Drolet 2005 Liu and Aaker 2007

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Theoretical Model
Emotional Mindset
Activated Construct

Time
Personal meaning Giving leads to happiness
Actual Contribution
or
Money
_
Value- maximization mindset
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Hypotheses

• H1 Making time-asks (vs. not making time-asks)
  increases subsequent amount of charitable
  contribution
• H2 Making money-asks (vs. not making money-asks)
  decreases subsequent amount of charitable
  contribution

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Experiment 1(N 199 Age 33, 29 male)

• Objective
• Test H1 the time-ask effect
• Procedure
• Ordinary consumers online
• Context American Lung Cancer Foundation
• Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both
  men and women in the US. The American Lung Cancer
  Foundations mission is to promote public
  awareness, policy making, and medical research
  towards preventing lung cancer

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Design

• Time-ask condition
• Read about American Lung Cancer Fund
• How much time would you like to donate to ALCF?
  ___
• How much money would you donate to ALCF? ___
• Control condition
• Read about American Lung Cancer Fund
• How much money would you donate to ALCF? ___

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Donation Pledged

• Time-ask 36.44
• Control 24.46

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Alternative Explanations

• Guilt
• No time to give -gt guilt -gt give money
• However, positive correlation between time and
  money donations (r.43, plt.01)
• Zero volunteers pledged less than Will
  volunteers
• Zero volunteering 19.75
• Non-zero volunteering 45.81

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Alternative Explanations

• Value anchoring
• Measuring time first may anchor on higher amount
  of
• How much is an hour worth to you?
• 28/hour
• Volunteer 5.82 hours
• Translated value 157
• No correlation between time valuation and money
  donated (r .14, p .13)

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Alternative Explanations

• Foot in the door
• Scarcity of time vs. money
• How scarce is time (money) to you? (M 4.80 vs
  4.77)
• Scarcity of money correlated with donation, but
  scarcity of time uncorrelated with volunteering
• Scarcity of resource (an economic argument) is
  applicable when money, but not time, is asked

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Experiment 2

• Objectives
• Two questions, altering order. Thus, 3
  conditions
• Time-ask first
• Money-ask first
• Control (no ask)
• Move from quantitative measure of intent
• Temporal gap between asks and donation
• Real campaign, real contribution (money and time)

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HopeLab
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Procedure(N 193, age 22, 58 male)

• College students at UC Berkeley, participating in
  session of studies

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• Three conditions
• Time-ask first
• Money-ask first
• Control

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• 20 minute filler

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When Turning in Questionnaire

• Donate to HopeLab box
• 10 cash in 1 bills
• Fill out receipt for net amount taken
• Flyer soliciting volunteering (leave email for
  Robin Avnet, ravant_at_hopelab.org)

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Money Donated (out of 10)

• Time-ask first 5.85
• Money-ask first 3.07
• Control 4.42
• Pair-wise comparisons significant (ps .05)

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Procedure

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Volunteering Pledged(gave email or not)

• Time-ask first 14
• Money-ask first 3
• Control 3
• Time-ask significantly greater (ps .03, .04)

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Actual Volunteering(tracked over one month)

• Time-ask 7 (4 people, M 6.5 hrs)
• Money-ask 1.6 (1 person)
• Control 1.6 (1 person)

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Experiment 3

• Objective
• Shed light on process underlying the time-ask
  effect
• Proposed mechanism
• Time-ask activates emotional mindset
• Giving leads to personal happiness
• Alternative mechanisms
• Increased empathy
• Increased ease of representation of behavior

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Procedure(N 50, age 20, 32 male)

• HopeLab fundraiser, with two conditions
• Time-ask first
• Money-ask first
• Donation pledged out of 20 study compensation
• Pledge honored through lottery

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Process Measures

• Empathy index
• How easily can you imagine the life of young
  people with chronic illnesses?
• How much can you empathize with (i.e., understand
  and feel for) young people with chronic
  illnesses?
• Ease-of-representation index
• How easily can you imagine yourself working for
  HopeLab?
• How easily can you imagine yourself donating to
  HopeLab?
• Emotional meaning
• To what degree do you believe happiness is tied
  to volunteering?
• To what degree do you believe happiness is tied
  to donating money?

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Amount Donated(out of 20)

• Time-ask first 11.50
• Money-ask first 6.65

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Process Insight
Also no effect of asking on perception of company.
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General Discussion

• Psychology of money
• When does giving money to a charity distance you
  from that charity, and when does it draw you
  closer?
• Honing in on role of personal meaning
• Psychology of time
• How do people want to spend their time?
• Beyond time-ask, what factors foster emotional
  mindset?
• Deeper insights
• Does the time-ask effect persist longitudinally
• Neural evidence of mindset
• How do findings map into the real world?

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Psychology of Money

• When does giving money to a charity distance you
  from that charity, and when does it draw you
  closer?
• Can we shift the meaning of money?

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Theoretical Model
Emotional Mindset
Activated Construct
Time
Personal meaning Giving leads to happiness
Actual Contribution
or
Money
Value- maximization mindset
?
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Experiment (N 78, age 22, 50 male)

• Design
• Just self manipulation
• How interested in donating to HopeLab?
• How interested are you in working for HopeLab?
• With others manipulation
• How interested in joining others donating to
  HopeLab?
• How interested are you in joining others working
  for HopeLab?

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Money Donated (out of 20)

• Just Self
• Time-ask first 10.00
• Money-ask first 4.28

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Money Donated (out of 20)

• Just Self With Others
• Time-ask first 10.00 3.83
• Money-ask first 4.28 8.33

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Personally Care about HopeLab

• Just Self With Others
• Time-ask first 3.40 2.83
• Money-ask first 2.57 4.00

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General Discussion

• Psychology of money
• When does giving money to a charity distance you
  from that charity, and when does it draw you
  closer?
• Honing in on role of personal meaning
• Psychology of time
• How do people want to spend their time?
• Beyond time-ask, what factors foster emotional
  mindset?
• Deeper insights
• Does the time-ask effect persist longitudinally
• Neural evidence of mindset
• How do findings map into the real world?

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The Psychology of Time

• How do you want to spend your time?

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• With the people I love
• Doing things that I love to do

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People You Love (to Spend Time With)
Felt Happiness (release of endorphines)
People you love to spend time with
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Knutson et al. (2007)
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Drivers of Happiness(Psychology Today, 2006)
Glamorous
Money (over 40K/yr)
Beauty
Youth
Self esteem
Intelligence
Matters more than you think
Matters less than you think
Free time
Education
Friends
Laughing
Dancing Volunteering
Religion
Mundane
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• I've learned that people will forget what you
  said, people will forget what you did, but people
  will never forget how you made them feel - when
  you spent time together.
• Maya Angelou

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Appendix
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General Discussion

• Psychology of money
• When does giving money to a charity distance you
  from that charity, and when does it draw you
  closer?
• Honing in on role of personal meaning
• Psychology of time
• How do people want to spend their time?
• Beyond time-ask, what factors foster emotional
  mindset?
• Deeper insights
• Does the time-ask effect persist longitudinally
• Neural evidence of mindset
• How do findings map into the real world?

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Experiment (N 35, age 21, 43 male)

• Cover
• As a nonprofit humanitarian organization,
  Childrens Fund focuses on easing the burdens
  placed on impoverished children. Our caring
  sponsors and donors give poor children from
  around the world an opportunity at a better life.
• IV
• Control
• If you would like donate some canned food as a
  donation, we will donate it to Childrens Fund
• If you would like donate some childrens toys

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Money Donated to Childrens Fund (out of 5)

• 1.62
• 0
• Control 0
• Pair-wise comparisons significant
  (ps .05)

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General Discussion

• Psychology of money
• When does giving money to a charity distance you
  from that charity, and when does it draw you
  closer?
• Honing in on role of personal meaning
• Psychology of time
• How do people want to spend their time?
• Beyond time-ask, what factors foster emotional
  mindset?
• Deeper insights
• Does the time-ask effect persist longitudinally
• Neural evidence of mindset
• How do findings map into the real world?

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The Third Ask
In politics, supporters traditionally get two
"asks" from candidates one for money, and one
for a vote. That's it. That means most of the
campaign work is done by a few paid staffers. Not
a very participatory democracy. The Obama
campaign has turned this notion on its head and
built a community involvement strategy. Axelrod
and his team realized that supporters of a
political candidate are passionate and want to
help. While most have full-time jobs and
families, and can't spend weekends knocking on
doors, they all have five minutes to spare to
help out. The Obama campaign has taken advantage
of this by actually asking people for help.
They're letting a large number of people do a
small amount of work each. So if you go to sign
up on the Obama website or go to a rally, you
might be asked to call three voters in a swing
state. Or if they know you are a member of Digg,
Obama's people may ask you to Digg an article
that is favorable to Obama or critical of his
opponent. Or they might ask you to put a bumper
sticker on your Facebook page.
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(No Transcript)
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The Donation Task

• 4 charities
• American Red Cross
• American Cancer Society
• Alzheimer's Foundation of America
• Habitat for Humanity
• 4 monetary donation types
• 5
• 10
• 20
• 50
• 2 priming conditions, i.e. asks
• TIME
• MONEY

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The Donation Task TIME Prime
Prime
Would you donate TIME to American Red Cross?
Fixate

Anticipate
Get ready to donate
4 seconds
Choose
5 to American Red Cross?
2 seconds
2 seconds
2 seconds
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The Donation Task MONEY Prime
Prime
Would you donate MONEY to American Red Cross?
Fixate

Anticipate
Get ready to donate
4 seconds
Choose
5 to American Red Cross?
2 seconds
2 seconds
2 seconds
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fMRI pilot

• Subject
• n1
• male
• 29 years old
• Student at Stanford
• Data collection analysis
• Scanning time approx. 30 minutes
• Scanner type 1.5 Tesla GE
• Standard head coil
• Number of slices 45
• Slice thickness 3 millimeter
• Gap between slices 0.3 millimeter
• Repetition time 2.98 seconds
• Echo time 45 milliseconds
• Presentation software E-Prime 1.2
• Analysis software SPM 5

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fMRI pilot data

• Brain areas activated during anticipation after
• TIME PRIME MONEY PRIME
• Orbitofrontal cortex Insula, Inferior frontal
  gyrus

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How to Inspire Giving?
Inspire to Give
Ask
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How to Inspire Giving?
Emotional Engagement
Inspire to Give
Ask
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Inspiring Giving
This speaks to me
Am growing
Inspire to Give
Ask
Am connected to others I admire
Am learning
I feel for them
Dont like feeling guilty
Clary and Snyder (1995)
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Heuristics of Giving

• Want to help within their group
• Even when they could do more good for those
  outside
• Favor identified, single recipients
• Even when they could do more good for people in
  mass
• Want choice
• Even when they dont make it well
• Evaluate charities by amount of wasted
• Vs. amount of good they do/ contributed

Baron and Szymanska 2007