Empathy as added value in predicting donation behavior

Past behavior and socio-demographics represent traditional predictors of charitable giving. The present study examines, in a real fundraising setting, whether measures of empathy (i.e., empathic concern and personal distress) can improve these predictions. The findings confirm the relevance of traditional predictor sets and the added value of including measures of empathy. Empathic concern positively affects the donation decision. In addition, empathy negatively affects the donor's generosity toward one charity. However, for people with high empathic concern, considering only generosity toward one charity could be misleading because such people are more likely to donate to different charities. This result has implications for overall generosity. Therefore, a clear distinction between both personality traits is necessary.     

Empathy and the salesperson: A multidimensional perspective

Prior studies of empathy have yielded conflicting findings regarding the effectiveness of empathy in improving salesperson performance. This article integrates a multidimensional conceptualization of empathy from the psychology literature with existing theory from marketing literature to suggest that perspective taking, empathic concern, emotional contagion, and controlling behaviors will differentially effect salesperson performance. Responses from a survey of business-to-business salespeople indicate that empathy has both positive and negative effects. Implications of the findings are explored. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy,Personal Values,and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making

The objective of the present research was two-fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence.     

Does empathy matter in corporate social responsibility? Evidence from emerging markets

This paper explores how cross-country differences in empathy can explain variations in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We show that empathy is positively associated with overall CSR, as well as with its social and environmental components. Our results are robust to using the two components of empathy, empathic concern and perspective taking. Our findings are further corroborated by evidence from a quasi-natural experiment based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. We find that during the year of the disaster and the following year, firms located in countries with high levels of empathy donated more money than firms located in countries with less empathy.     

Empathic Relationships in Professional Services and the Moderating Role of Relationship Age

Empathy has been identified as a key success factor for employees who interact with customers. Despite its overall relevance, only a few studies have acknowledged its multidimensional nature. Knowledge remains scarce about the relative impact of cognitive and affective empathy on relational outcomes. In addition, few pieces of research have explicitly acknowledged empathy as theorized within stage‐models focusing on the communication of empathy. The authors conceptualize empathy as a multidimensional construct perceived by the client. Empathy has to be communicated to be effective, while customers’ perceptions of empathy may also be more complex as they distinguish between cognitive and affective empathy. This article investigates the effects of perspective taking, emotional concern, and emotional contagion on trust and commitment. Drawing upon relationship stage concepts, the authors further argue that the influence is moderated by relationship age. Finally, this study investigates if employees benefit from being perceived as empathic partners in terms of “hard facts” (objective sales performance). Based on a data set from 215 business clients of a large consulting firm, this study adopts a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach by using multigroup analysis. To test the empathy–performance link, the authors aggregate customer responses nested in 84 employees and link perceived empathy with performance data. The results show that within B2B relationships, perspective taking exerts the strongest influence on trust, whereas emotional concern is the strongest driver for commitment. The results also confirm the moderating role of relationship age and that perspective taking leads to an increase in actual sales performance. This study underpins the relevance of empathy within services marketing, while providing a more detailed approach to account for empathy as a relation building tool. Practical and academic implications are also addressed.     

Are people less generous after a family member gives to charity? The interaction of self-construal and relationship type

Extant research shows that people become more generous after learning about the charitable giving of in-group members (e.g., family or friends). The present research demonstrates an exception: While a friend’s donation increases both the interdependents’ and the independents’ charitable giving, a family member’s donation decreases the interdependents’ but increases the independents’ charitable giving. Six studies, including a field experiment and an online survey that captures historical behavior, provide converging evidence in support of an interaction effect of consumers’ self-construal and their relationship type with previous donors on their generosity, showing that the interdependents become less generous after a family member (vs friend) donates. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the interaction effect is driven by the perception of shared responsibility and that this interaction effect is weakened when consumers’ personal responsibility is enhanced or when the donation currency is time rather than money. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the work are discussed.     

Mapping the imaginary of charitable giving

The meaningfulness of charitable giving is largely owed to the imaginary conceptions that underpin this form of giving. Building on Taylor's notion of “social imaginary” and Godelier's work on “gift imaginary,” we theorize the imaginary of charitable giving. Through a combination of qualitative methods the charitable gift imaginary and its role in givers' meaning making are explored in a specific socio-cultural context. The theoretical foundation and the generated data enable us to map the imaginary of charitable giving across four distinct clusters and theorize meaning – making as navigation across relatively stable assemblages of conceptions of poverty, donors, end-recipients and charitable giving. These assemblages are suggested to form a multifaceted imaginary that is both cultural (shared) and personal (individually performed).     

Empathy,Connectedness and Organisation

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness.     

Varieties of CSR: Institutions and Socially Responsible Behaviour

A central concern within contemporary socio-economics has been on the relationship between national institutional configurations and societal outcomes. In this paper, we assess the relationship between legal origin and a range of correlated indicators of social responsibility, focusing on socially responsible investing and voluntary charitable giving. We found that in Common Law contexts, lower levels of social responsibility than in Civil Law contexts, other than in the area of charitable giving, where the converse was the case. We explore the reasons for this distinction, and for the different patterns encountered in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Based on the findings, we identify directions for future research.     

Charitable Donations as Social Exchange or Agapic Action on the Internet: The Case of Hungersite.com

SUMMARY

Donations to charity have long been of interest to marketing academics seeking to understand the relationships between nonprofit organizations and their customers. A key area of concern is that of motivation-why do individuals donate time, money and other resources to charities in general or to particular charities? While marketers in particular, and social scientists in general, have explained donation and gift giving in terms of the exchange paradigm, more recently consumer researchers have introduced the notion of agapic (or unselfish) behavior to explain some aspects of gift giving. Using the case of a successful charitable Internet site, Hungersite.com, this paper attempts to contrast the exchange and agapic paradigms of donation behavior, with the re sulting strategic implications this may have for charity marketing strategy.     

Applying Person‐Environment Fit Theory to Identify Personality Differences between Prospective Social and Commercial Entrepreneurs: An Explorative Study

Research has started to investigate personality traits of social entrepreneurs because such traits in commercial entrepreneurs have been found to affect new venture creation/success. In this exploratory study, we apply the person‐environment fit theory and analyze specific social entrepreneurial personality dimensions (i.e., altruism, empathic concern, personal distress, compassion), and classical entrepreneurial personality dimensions (i.e., need for achievement (nAch), entrepreneurial self‐efficacy (ESE), general self‐efficacy, risk‐taking propensity) to identify differences between prospective social and commercial entrepreneurs. Using a sample of 85 prospective entrepreneurs, results show that prospective social entrepreneurs differ from prospective commercial entrepreneurs in the personality dimensions of personal distress, nAch, ESE, and risk‐taking propensity.     

How personal nostalgia influences giving to charity

Personal nostalgia provides an emotionally engaging means for bonding a donor to a nonprofit organization. Yet, little is known about the relationship between personal nostalgia and charitable giving; this research seeks to fill this gap. A review of the extant literature is integrated with the findings from thirteen focus groups (Study 1) to develop a conceptual model. This model is tested in Studies 2 (using 457 older public television donors) and 3 (with a broader sample of 502 donors) using structural equations modeling. The findings indicate that discontinuity, recovery from grief, and loneliness, along with previous life experiences influence the level of personal nostalgia felt by a donor and associated with a charitable organization. This personal nostalgia provides emotional and familial utility to the donor. The research establishes that the effect of personal nostalgia on the donor's commitment is mediated by the emotional and familial utility that the nostalgia generates.     

Millennials,Social Media,Prosocial Emotions,and Charitable Causes: The Paradox of Gender Differences

This research investigated gender differences of Millennials’ online and offline prosocial intentions to support charitable events for the causes of breast cancer and homeless youth after exposure to Facebook appeals to self-benefit and others-benefit, as well as with respect to their empathy identification with the cause and their social-oriented moral identity. In general, the results agree with the literature indicating that women tend to be more altruistic, empathetic, and moral than men. Paradoxically, the findings indicate that, within a social media context, emotions related to altruism, empathy toward the cause, and socially oriented moral identity are factors more closely predictive of males’ inclinations to engage in activities to support charitable events. Whereas women are already more predisposed to helping others, nonprofit marketers must emotionally prod men to help others through specific emotional hooks for prosocial behaviors.     

Aesthetically (dis)pleasing visuals: A dual pathway to empathy and prosocial behavior

This research investigates how the combination of aesthetically appealing and unappealing visual elements in marketing communications can motivate prosocial behavior. Prior literature has investigated the effectiveness of aesthetically pleasing or displeasing visuals separately and has reported mixed results. Based on the notion that empathy is a key driver of prosocial behavior, the current work first makes a theoretical distinction between two antecedents of empathy—identification and perceived need—and then illustrates how these antecedents are evoked by pleasing and displeasing visual elements, respectively. The authors show that the combination of a pleasing individual (human or object) and a displeasing group is particularly effective in evoking identification and perceived need, and therefore empathy. The elevated empathy, in turn, motivates prosocial behavior. Five main experiments in the field, lab, and online, as well as a pre-study and two post-studies, provide supportive empirical evidence. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Understanding the determinants of environmentally conscious behavior

An understanding of the various motivational determinants of environmental consumer behavior is developed based on Batson's (1987) model of prosocial behavior. A correlational study finds support for two independent determinants of environmental behavior, the first being motivation based on internal responses of distress, the second being motivation based on empathy. The advantage of motivating environmental behavior through distress and empathy, over the more standard approaches based on attitudes and rewards or punishments, are discussed. In addition, the research supports the role of perceived consumer effectiveness and faith in others as determinants of some environmentally conscious consumer behaviors. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

电子支付在慈善捐款中应用探讨

从2008年初的雨雪冻灾到"5.12汶川大地震",使用电子支付捐款成为一股新鲜力量,在救灾重建过程中起到了积极的推动作用.在介绍电子支付涵义的基础上,分析其在慈善捐款中的主要方式,初步探讨了电子支付在慈善捐款中相关问题,并就如何通过现代支付手段有效建立慈善捐赠渠道,提出了一些建议.     

Moral Emotions and Unethical Bargaining: The Differential Effects of Empathy and Perspective Taking in Deterring Deceitful Negotiation

Two correlational studies tested whether personality differences in empathy and perspective taking differentially relate to disapproval of unethical negotiation strategies, such as lies and bribes. Across both studies, empathy, but not perspective taking, discouraged attacking opponents’ networks, misrepresentation, inappropriate information gathering, and feigning emotions to manipulate opponents. These results suggest that unethical bargaining is more likely to be deterred by empathy than by perspective taking. Study 2 also tested whether individual differences in guilt proneness and shame proneness inhibited the endorsement of unethical bargaining tactics. Guilt proneness predicted disapproval of false promises and misrepresentation. Empathy did not predict disapproval of false promises when guilt proneness was included in the analysis. The comparatively private nature of the sin of false promises suggests that private ethical breaches are more likely to be deterred by anticipated guilt, while ethical breaches with clear interpersonal consequences are more likely to be deterred by empathy.     

The CEO's Influence on Corporate Foundation Giving

Some scholars have argued that CEOs may have excessive influence on their foundation's trustees to give away a portion of company profits to charitable causes in order to gain access to elite circles or support the CEO's personal causes. This may result in charitable contributions that ultimately serve the personal interests of the CEOs without regard to corporate interests or social needs. We examine the extent that CEOs appear to direct charitable giving to be compatible with their own personal interests, and if CEO participation on the foundation board affects the relationship between CEO personal interests and charitable giving. Using a sample of 160 corporate foundations, our results showed that CEOs' interests, as measured by membership in different non-profit organizations, was associated with foundation charitable giving. This association decreased, but was not eliminated, when CEOs were absent from the foundation board. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed in regards to both agency theory and stewardship theory.     

Effects of underdog (vs. top dog) positioning advertising

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.