When altruistic decisions shape egoistic motives: motivation shift in sequential charitable support

Abstract

Prior studies of sequential moral behaviors suggest that when people believe they have made a moral decision (e.g. engaged in a prosocial act), subsequent decisions would be less moral. This paper investigates the motivation shift hypothesis, suggesting that people’s prosocial behavior is consistent when asked to make subsequent donations; however, their prosocial motivation is inconsistent. To test this hypothesis, two charitable message appeals were used: a message that focuses on the benefits to others (i.e. altruistic other-benefit) and a message that focuses on the donors’ benefits (i.e. egoistic self-benefit). In a pilot study and three experiments, this paper suggests that after agreeing to an altruistic charitable request, people are more generous if they see a self-benefit message appeal. We propose that consumers’ moral status plays a role which increases egoistic motivation in subsequent charitable decisions, following an altruistic charitable giving. This pattern is only observed when the subsequent request is asked by a different charity, as opposed to the same charity.