We present a complete empirical case study of fundraising campaign decisions that demonstrates the importance of in-context field experiments. We first design novel matching-based fundraising appeals. We derive theory-based predictions from the standard impure altruism model and solicit expert...

People must rely on relatively intuitive processes to navigate complex information environments to make decisions. One common mental task is to keep a running total – that is, to form an estimate of the sum of positive-number series (e.g., mentally tracking expenses, calories). Despite the...

Intertemporal choices represent one of the most common and fundamental trade-offs in consumer decision-making. How do intertemporal choices made for another person differ from similar choices made for oneself? To examine this question, the present research introduces the first integrative...

Charity marketers face the challenge of understanding how pro-social decisions are made. Are all solicitations made equal? The authors found that a helping opportunity and a giving opportunity reveal different pro-social preferences. In a series of four studies, involving hypothetical and real...

Prior research on gift giving has often treated “making recipients happy” as interchangeable with “improving recipients’ welfare.” We propose givers’ motive to make recipients happy is better understood as a desire to induce positive affective reactions, such as a smile from...