Active Decisions and Prosocial Behaviour: a Field Experiment on Blood Donation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Stutzer, Alois; Goette, Lorenz; Zehnder, Michael
• 署名单位: University of Basel; University of Lausanne
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2011.02477.x
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: F476-F493
• 关键词: defaults; preferences; motivation; volunteer; culture; demand; image

摘要

Assigning a subjective value to a contribution to a public good often requires reflection. For many reasons, this reflection may be put off, reinforcing the underprovision of public goods. We hypothesise that nudging individuals to reflect on whether to contribute to a public good leads to the formation of issue-specific altruistic preferences. The hypothesis is tested in a large-scale field experiment on blood donations. We find that an active-decision intervention substantially increases donations among subjects who had not previously thought about the importance of donating blood. By contrast, contributions of individuals who had previously engaged in such reflection are unchanged.