How Affective Displays and Self-Construal Impact Consumers’ Generosity

ABSTRACT

Nonprofit brands vary widely in their positioning to consumers, ranging from crisis and desperation to joy and optimism. The literature, however, provides limited direction for the many nonprofit organizations that seek to align their brand with positive emotions. Herein, we examine the relationship between affective displays (sad vs. happy) portrayed in charitable advertisements and consumer self-construal in shaping consumer generosity. We employ one field study (study 1) and one lab experiment (study 2), using different charitable causes (i.e., Kiva.org [study 1] and a fictitious children’s cancer charity [study 2]) and currencies (i.e., lending money [study 1] and volunteering time [study 2]). Taken together, we find that happy (sad) affective displays are most effective for consumers who hold an independent (interdependent) self-construal, and that this alignment heightens empathy and in turn increases perceptions of efficacy, which increases generosity. Implications for future research and nonprofit practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Facial affect
• affect
• self-construal
• prosocial behavior
• charitable giving

Acknowlegment

Funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Doctoral Fellowship 752-2010-2705 and Postdoctoral Fellowship 756-2012-0980) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Sarah Moore, Karen Page Winterich and Alixandra Barasch for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although 150 participants were recruited, 16 were not included in the analyses due to an absence of at least one of the items or variables needed for the analysis, resulting in a final sample of 134.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [752-2010-2705,756-2012-0980].