Active Decisions and Pro-social Behavior: A Field Experiment on Blood Donation

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, we propose a decision framework where people are individually asked to either actively consent or dissent to some pro-social behavior. We hypothesize that confronting individuals with the choice of engaging in a specific pro-social behavior contributes to the formation of issue-specific altruistic preferences while simultaneously involving a commitment. The hypothesis is tested in a large-scale field experiment on blood donation. We find that this "active-decision" intervention substantially increases the actual donation behavior of people who have not fully formed preferences beforehand.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WWZ Discussion Paper ; No. 06/04

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Field Experiments ; Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• Subject: active decision ; pro-social behavior ; field experiment ; blood donation ; Altruismus ; Test ; Soziales Verhalten

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Stutzer, Alois ; Goette, Lorenz ; Zehnder, Michael
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Basel, Center of Business and Economics (WWZ)
• (where): Basel
• (when): 2006

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.5451/unibas-ep26564
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/123362
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET