Examining charitable giving in real-world online donations

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Economics
• Social Psychology
• Computational Social Science

Background:

• Understanding the motivations behind prosocial behavior, such as charitable giving, is crucial.
• Online donation platforms provide a rich dataset for studying real-world altruism and its determinants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the factors influencing online donation behavior using a large-scale dataset.
• To examine the roles of anonymity, kinship, social influence, and gender in prosocial giving.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a large dataset of online donations from the GoFundMe platform (over $44 million).
• Utilized survey data to assess the motivations behind anonymous donations.
• Statistical analysis to identify correlations between donor characteristics, recipient information, and donation behavior.

Main Results:

• 21% of donations were anonymous; 2.3% of all donations were anonymous and not egoistic.
• Donors gave more to recipients with the same last name.
• Donation amounts were influenced by the visibility of opposite-sex donors and average donation sizes, with men being more influenced by the latter.
• Women expressed significantly more empathy in donation messages than men.

Conclusions:

• Prosocial behavior in online donations is complex, influenced by a combination of altruistic, egoistic, and social factors.
• Gender plays a role in donation motivations and expressions of empathy.
• The study highlights the impact of social cues and psychological biases on charitable giving decisions.