Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially

American Economic Review, Vol. 99, No. 1, pp. 544-555, 2009

12 Pages Posted: 31 Oct 2011

See all articles by Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely

Duke University - Fuqua School of Business

Anat Bracha

The Hebrew University

Stephan Meier

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management

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Date Written: 2009

Abstract

This paper examines image motivation - the desire to be liked and well-regarded by others - as a driver in prosocial behavior (doing good), and asks whether extrinsic monetary incentives (doing well) have a detrimental effect on prosocial behavior due to crowding out of image motivation.

By definition, image depends on one's behavior being visible to other people. Using this unique property we show that image is indeed an important part of the motivation to behave prosocially. Moreover, we show that extrinsic incentives interact with image motivation and are therefore less effective in public than in private. Together, these results imply that image motivation is crowded out by monetary incentives; this means that monetary incentives are more likely to be counterproductive for public prosocial activities than for private ones.

Suggested Citation

Ariely, Dan and Bracha, Anat and Meier, Stephan, Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially (2009). American Economic Review, Vol. 99, No. 1, pp. 544-555, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1951645

Dan Ariely (Contact Author)

Duke University - Fuqua School of Business ( email )

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Anat Bracha

The Hebrew University ( email )

Israel

Stephan Meier

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston ( email )

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Management ( email )

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