Gendered giving: the influence of social norms on the donation behavior of men and women |
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| Authors: | Rachel T. A. Croson Femida Handy Jen Shang |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Economics, Political and Policy Sciences and School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, USA;2. School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, USA;3. Center on Philanthropy, Indiana University, USA |
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| Abstract: | - We study if men and women are subject to different influences when determining their level of charitable giving. In particular, we examine differential sensitivities to social norms among donors to a public radio station. Our survey of 975 donors finds that male donors are more likely than female donors to use social norms to inform their own behavior. We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the influence of social information on social norm formation and giving. Our results suggest that temporarily created social norms influence giving by men significantly more than by women. This result replicates and establishes the causal relationship between social norms and donations suggested by our field findings. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications of these results.
Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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