The Language of Generosity: How Policy Framing Impacts Altruistic Behavior

This research project seeks to identify one contributing factor: the way in which recent policy changes are framed. Prior research has established that individuals are more motivated to donate to causes they care about under conditions of “policy threat” – i.e. when they believe their policy preferences are under future threat – and less motivated otherwise. We believe that recent policy changes may create the same effect. Specifically, we hypothesize that when people perceive a policy setback related to an issue they care about, they are galvanized to action, while a perceived policy victory makes people complacent due to a lack of urgency or peril. We seek to test these hypotheses using a series of experiments.