Saliency of the Coronavirus and its Impact on Charitable Giving

Abstract

Previous research has shown emotions can significantly influence whether someone will donate to an organization. Furthermore, proximity and personal experience affect philanthropic behavior. Also, if media make consumers feel sympathetic, they are more likely to become philanthropic. This phenomenon is called sympathy bias. It is unknown, however, if this theory will pertain to philanthropic behavior during the coronavirus. To understand the factors that affect contemporary individual philanthropy, I conducted a survey experiment with over 140 participants to determine what influences individual giving. Each participant was randomly assigned either an emotionally charged article covering the coronavirus, a statistical article covering the coronavirus, or no article and then presented with a hypothetical scenario where they can decide to donate money to a coronavirus research organization. I find participants given either article were significantly more likely to donate money than those in the control group. Additionally, the influence of ideology was minimized in those conditions. This research contributes to the literature by examining how different media frames of the coronavirus affect philanthropic giving.