EXAMINING THE INTERACTION EFFECTS OF COMPASSION AND SELF-REGULATORY MODE ON PREFERENCE FOR MULTI-FINAL AND UNI-FINAL CHARITABLE ACTS

Abstract

In order to encourage charitable donations, charities often appeal to participants’ self-interest by offering rewards. This widely used tactic is characteristic of a multi-final act which allows participants to achieve both goals of helping others and benefitting the self. By contrast, a uni-final act achieves only the goal of helping others. To our knowledge, multi-finality and uni-finality has yet to be studied in the context of charitable giving. The present study examined the effect of compassion on the number of multi-final charitable acts chosen, with self-regulatory mode as a potential moderator. Participants (N = 235) were randomly assigned to the compassion or neutral condition, whereby they were presented with pairs of multi-final and uni-final charitable acts. While compassion manipulation was successful, we found no main effect of compassion. This suggests that feelings of compassion did not result in action, perhaps due to participants getting distracted by the option of a free meal. A non-significant moderating effect of self-regulatory mode was obtained, which may be explained by the insufficient activation of self-regulatory mode. Future studies should consider carrying out the study in-person and sufficiently activating both assessment and locomotion modes.