Abstract

Individuals engage in charitable giving for various reasons, such as due to the personal relevance of the cause (e.g., donating to the shelter one’s pet was adopted from), empathy toward the beneficiaries (e.g., victims of a natural disaster), and/or emotional (e.g., warm glow) or material (e.g., tax rebates) benefits, among many others. Although prior research has identified several determinants of charitable giving, gaps remain regarding why donors may contribute more money to certain charitable causes than others. The current research aims to address these gaps by examining the impact of fear as a determinant of charitable giving, and more specifically investigating whether 1) certain types of charitable causes are more (vs. less) feared than others due to 2) being more (vs. less) likely to evoke donors’ feared self, and 3) whether a cause’s inherent level of fear interacts with the use of fear (vs. neutral or hope) appeals in its marketing communications. Two pre-tests and four online experiments were conducted to test these hypotheses. The findings revealed that a more feared cause produced more favorable attitude and donation intentions compared to a less feared cause, by prompting higher levels of feared self (study 1). Further, fear (or neutral/hope) appeals did not reliably impact how donors responded to more (vs. less) feared causes (studies 2 and 3). Finally, theoretical, and managerial implications of the findings are discussed, as well as directions for future research.