Universität zu Köln

Oslislo, Christoph ORCID: 0000-0002-5446-5079 (2024). Social Context and Prosocial Behavior: Three Essays in Behavioral Economics. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

This collection of essays explores the inherent sociality of giving. It addresses various social aspects of the decision environment, such as social information and social influence, group membership and social identity, and social norms. Chapter 1 presents the single-author study ''Charitable Giving Underway: Two Field Experiments on Fundraising Thermometers.'' Fundraising thermometers, visual representations of the progress a nonprofit has already made toward a campaign goal, provide social information relative to an explicit fundraising goal. In collaboration with an international development organization, I conduct two natural field experiments with a total of 160,000 donors to examine the effectiveness of the tool in raising funds for a charitable cause. The use of fundraising thermometers significantly increases donation rates by 52% and funds raised by 42%. Chapter 2 is about the study ''Norms and Elections: How elected rules can make behavior (in)appropriate'' and is based on joint work with Arno Apffelstaedt and Jana Freundt. A number of recent observations suggest that social norms can change rapidly as a result of election outcomes. We explore this conjecture using a controlled online experiment. Chapter 3 presents the study ''Identity Priming, Cognitive Spillovers and Charitable Giving'' and is based on joint work with Luca Henkel and Frederik Schwerter. Behavioral interventions can change behavior by influencing the way people cognitively process information. We conduct a controlled natural field experiment with over 100,000 subjects to study the effect of a group appeal based on regional affiliation on donations to a charity fighting global poverty. The group appeal significantly reduces the number of donors and total donations. We relate this to prior research on identity priming in charitable giving.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Oslislo, Christoph c_oslislo@live.de orcid.org/0000-0002-5446-5079 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-749676
Date:	2024
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Economics > Microeconomics, Institutions and markets > Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik
Subjects:	Economics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Behavioral Economics English Experiments English Prosocial Behavior English Public Economics English
Date of oral exam:	5 December 2024
Referee:	Name Academic Title Schwerter, Frederik Jun.-Prof. Irlenbusch, Bernd Prof.
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/74967