Subliminal influence on generosity

Ola Andersson; Topi Miettinen; Kaisa  Hytönen; Magnus  Johannesson; Ute Stephan

doi:10.1007/s10683-016-9498-8

Subliminal influence on generosity

Ola Andersson, Topi Miettinen, Kaisa Hytönen, Magnus Johannesson, Ute Stephan

Economics, Finance and Entrepreneurship

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We experimentally subliminally prime subjects prior to charity donation decisions by showing words that have connotations of pro-social values for a very brief time (17ms). Our main fnding is that, compared to a baseline condition, the pro-social prime increases donations by approximately 10-17 percent among subjects with strong pro-social preferences (universalism values). We find a similar effect when interacting the prime with the Big 5 personality characteristic of agreeableness. We furthermore introduce a novel method for testing for priming, "subliminity". This method reveals that some subjects are capable of recognizing prime words, and the overall results are weaker when we control for this capacity.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	531–555
Number of pages	25
Journal	Experimental Economics
Volume	20
Issue number	3
Early online date	15 Oct 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-016-9498-8
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2017

Bibliographical note

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-016-9498-8

Keywords

prosocial motivation
charity
priming
values
behavioral economics
psychology
personality
agreeableness
subliminal

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10.1007/s10683-016-9498-8

Subliminal infulence on generosity
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-016-9498-8
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Cite this

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AU - Miettinen, Topi

AU - Hytönen, Kaisa

AU - Johannesson, Magnus

AU - Stephan, Ute

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KW - priming

KW - values

KW - behavioral economics

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KW - personality

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JO - Experimental Economics

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Subliminal influence on generosity

Abstract

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Keywords

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