Victim Identification, Framing Heuristic and Stress Effects on the Donation Decision

Abstract

The tendency of an individual to share his beings with other people arises from the social aspect of human nature. Especially in today's conditions where the gap between advantageous and disadvantaged groups is getting deeper, donation is extremely important to reach a global level of welfare and to create fair living standards for all. Due to the stated priorities, donation behavior has an important place among both religious and moral values. However, the factors that lead an individual towards donation behavior are not only social rules. In addition to external factors, important internal factors such as emotions also play a big role in the donation decision. In addition, there are many variables such as the donated thing itself, total assets of the donor and indeed the characteristics of the donor. Donation behavior, which is widely examined in the literature, is also considered as an important decision making subject.
 In our study, the effects that motivate an individual towards a donation; along with the donation amount and the ratio of donation, were examined with framing heuristics which express the individual's knowledge of the victim. The mentioned variables were associated with stress as one of the strongest negative arousal output, to understand the emotional aspect of a donation decision. The stress levels of the participants, who manipulated by two different scenarios, were monitored with galvanic skin response to determine the decision-making scenarios which triggered stress. As a result; it has been found that the individual's effort to gain the money he donates and the features of the donation call significantly affect the decision.