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Sign me up! Promoting volunteering with a compound task mechanism

Author

Listed:
  • Xiao, Erte
  • Houser, Daniel

Abstract

Building on theoretical and empirical literatures showing that choices not only reflect but also create preferences, we develop a two-stage compound task mechanism to promote pro-sociality. The first stage involves incentivizing participants to complete a compound task consisting of a targeted pro-social activity—volunteering– and a complement activity—writing about volunteering. The second stage involves incentivizing participants to repeatedly complete only the writing about volunteering. We conduct a field experiment and show that, conditional on completing first-stage volunteering + writing, intrinsic interest in volunteering is promoted even when people fail to complete the second-stage writing about volunteering. By contrast, participants assigned in the second stage either to volunteering, or to volunteering + writing, but who failed to complete these tasks, did not develop intrinsic interest in volunteering. These results are consistent with the theory underlying our two-stage compound-task mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2022. "Sign me up! Promoting volunteering with a compound task mechanism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 897-913.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:200:y:2022:i:c:p:897-913
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.06.026
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Volunteering; Incentives; Pro-social attitudes; Cognitive dissonance; Field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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