Maier, maximilian;
Caviola, Lucius;
Schubert, Stefan;
Harris, Adam JL;
(2023)
Investigating (sequential) unit asking: An unsuccessful quest for scope sensitivity in willingness to donate judgments.
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
, 36
(4)
, Article e2335. 10.1002/bdm.2335.
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Abstract
People exhibit scope insensitivity: Their expressed valuation of a problem is not proportionate with its scope or size. To address scope insensitivity in charitable giving, Hsee et al. (2013) developed the (Classical) Unit Asking technique, where people are first asked how much they are willing to donate to support a single individual, followed by how much they are willing to donate to support a group of individuals. In this paper, we explored the mechanisms, extensions, and limitations of the technique. In particular, we investigated an extension of the technique, which we call Sequential Unit Asking (SUA). SUA asks people a series of willingness-to-donate questions, in which the number of individuals to be helped increases in a stepwise manner until it reaches the total group size. Across four studies investigating donation judgments (total N¼2045), we did not find evidence that willingness to donate (WTD) judgments to the total group increased with larger groups. Instead, our results suggest that Unit Asking (sequential or classical) increases donation amounts only through a single one-off boost. Further, we find evidence in three out of four studies that the SUA extension increases WTD judgments over Classical Unit Asking. In a fifth study (N¼537) using a contingent valuation design (instead of donation judgments), we find scope sensitivity using all asking techniques. We conclude that, while it is difficult to create scope sensitivity in WTD judgments, SUA should be considered a promising approach to increase charitable donations.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Investigating (sequential) unit asking: An unsuccessful quest for scope sensitivity in willingness to donate judgments |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/bdm.2335 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2335 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Boosting, charitable giving, judgment and decision making, scope insensitivity, unit asking |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10169859 |
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