More pain, more prosocial? Assessing the Martyrdom Effect

The Martyrdom Effect is a behavioral tendency in which individuals exhibit greater generosity when their acts of giving entail effort or self-sacrifice (Olivola & Shafir, 2013). Giving at a personal cost, in this mindset, is associated with ascribing and inferring more meaning and value to charitable giving or other forms of generosity than in instances where no particular pain or effort is required to enact prosocial behavior. Arguably, the Martyrdom Effect’s ability to boost prosocial behavior therefore departs from other theories of behavior change postulating that easy options to act prosocially could boost contributions (e.g., default effects in charitable giving, see Altmann et al., 2019; Goswami & Urminsky, 2016). Because they introduce complexity to the debate about encouraging prosocial behavior, three studies from Olivola and Shafir (2013) are now being addressed in this Registered Report by Cheng and Feldman (2024).

Combining these three studies in a high-powered within-subjects replication attempt, transparently communicating necessary deviations from the original design and carefully outlining the analysis strategy, the current study will offer insights into the robustness of prior findings on the role of effort and pain in determining donations.

The Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated by two reviewers and the recommender. Based on detailed responses to the reviewers' comments, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

 

Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals:

 

 

 

1. Altmann, S., Falk, A., Heidhues, P., Jayaraman, R., & Teirlinck, M. (2019). Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 101, 808-826. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00774

 

2. Cheng, Y. T. & Feldman, G. (2024). Do pain and effort increase prosocial contributions?: Revisiting the Martyrdom Effect with a Replication and extensions Registered Report of Olivola and Shafir (2013). In principle acceptance of Version 2 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/aq89u

 

3. Goswami, I., & Urminsky, O. (2016). When should the Ask be a Nudge? The Effect of Default Amounts on Charitable Donations. Journal of Marketing Research, 53, 829-846. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.15.0001

 

4. Olivola, C. Y., & Shafir, E. (2013). The Martyrdom Effect: When Pain and Effort Increase Prosocial Contributions. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 26, 91-105. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.767