Exalted Purchases or Tainted Donations? Self‐signaling and the Evaluation of Charitable Incentives

It is common for charities to bundle donation requests with some type of product, such as a tote bag, pen, or coffee mug. The current studies find that people are more likely to donate when those bundles are framed as “charitable purchases” vs. “donations with a gift.” We show that this effect arises because consumers want to avoid the negative self‐signal associated with receiving a gift in exchange for donating. Five experiments provide...