Department of Economics, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jul 11;114(28):7301-7306. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1616921114. Epub 2017 Jun 27.
Research has shown that extrinsic incentives can crowd out intrinsic motivation in many contexts. Despite this, many nonprofits offer conditional thank-you gifts, such as mugs or tote bags, in exchange for donations. In collaboration with a nonprofit, this study implements a direct mail field experiment and demonstrates that thank-you gifts reduced donation rates in a fundraising campaign. Attention-based multiattribute choice models suggest that this is because prospective donors shift attention to the salient gift offer, causing them to underweight less salient intrinsic motives. Attention to the gift may also cause individuals to adopt a more cost-benefit mindset, further de-emphasizing intrinsic motives. Consistent with these hypotheses, crowding out was driven by those who donated higher amounts in the previous year (i.e., those who likely had higher intrinsic motivation). In a complementary online experiment, thank-you gifts also reduced donation rates but only when the gift was visually salient. This corroborates the mediating role of attention in crowding out. Taken together, the laboratory and field results demonstrate that this fundraising technique can be demotivating in some contexts and that this may occur through an attention-based mechanism.
研究表明，在许多情况下，外在激励会挤出内在动机。尽管如此，许多非营利组织仍提供有条件的感谢礼物，如杯子或手提袋，以换取捐款。本研究与一家非营利组织合作，实施了一项直邮现场实验，证明感谢礼物会降低筹款活动中的捐款率。基于注意力的多属性选择模型表明，这是因为潜在捐赠者将注意力转移到明显的礼物上，导致他们对不太明显的内在动机重视不足。对礼物的关注也可能导致个人采用更注重成本效益的思维方式，进一步淡化内在动机。这些假设得到了验证，挤出效应是由那些在前一年捐款较多的人（即那些可能有更高内在动机的人）驱动的。在一项补充的在线实验中，感谢礼物也降低了捐款率，但只有当礼物在视觉上很明显时才会如此。这证实了注意力在挤出效应中的中介作用。综上所述，实验室和现场实验结果表明，这种筹款技术在某些情况下可能会产生负面影响，而这可能是通过基于注意力的机制发生的。
