Effects of power and implicit theories on donation

Abstract

Charities have difficulty raising money to execute their plans, which are mainly focused on addressing social challenges. As a big proportion of donations come from individual consumers, understanding their different characteristics and psychological states is important. Power has a psychological quality that varies during everyday interactions and influences consumers’ actions. Investigating the impact of power state on donation intentions across two studies, this research first illustrates that powerless consumers with a high level of incremental theory of emotion show an increased willingness to donate, and second, negative affect is the underlying mechanism in the interaction between sense of powerlessness and the incremental theory of emotion on donation intentions. These results have theoretical and empirical implications.