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Earmarking donations to boost study participation? Evidence from a field experiment
Andreas Raff1, Robert Böhm2,3,4, Christoph Fuchs1
1Faculty of Business, Economics, and Statistics, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Plos One
|September 8, 2025
Summary
Offering study participants the choice to designate their charitable donation did not increase participation rates. This suggests earmarking may not be an effective incentive for research involvement.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
- Research Methodology
Background:
- Charitable donations are a common incentive for study participation.
- The optimal design of donation incentives, particularly earmarking, is not well understood.
- Previous research indicates earmarking can increase overall donation rates.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether allowing participants to earmark their donation for a specific purpose increases study participation.
- To test the effectiveness of donation earmarking as an incentive in a field experiment.
Main Methods:
- A preregistered field experiment involving 6,711 psychology faculty from top universities.
- Participants were offered a US $5 donation for completing a survey.
- Comparison between groups: one with earmarking option, one with random allocation.
Main Results:
- No significant difference in study participation rates was observed between the earmarking and random allocation groups.
- Contrary to hypotheses, allowing participants to earmark their donation did not enhance participation.
- The findings challenge the assumption that earmarking universally boosts engagement.
Conclusions:
- Earmarking charitable donations may not be an effective strategy to incentivize participation in academic research.
- The psychological drivers for donating to charity may differ from those for participating in studies.
- Further research is needed to explore alternative or complementary incentive designs for study recruitment.
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