SIGN ME UP! PROMOTING VOLUNTEERING WITH A COMPOUND TASK MECHANISM

41 Pages Posted: 24 Jan 2014 Last revised: 3 Jul 2022

See all articles by Erte Xiao

Erte Xiao

Monash University

Daniel Houser

Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 12, 2022

Abstract

Building on theoretical and empirical literatures showing that choices not only reflect but also create preferences, we develop a two-stage compound task mechanism to promote pro-sociality. The first stage involves incentivizing participants to complete a compound task consisting of a targeted pro-social activity—volunteering-- and a complement activity—writing about volunteering. The second stage involves incentivizing participants to repeatedly complete only the writing about volunteering. We conduct a field experiment and show that, conditional on completing first-stage volunteering + writing, intrinsic interest in volunteering is promoted even when people fail to complete the second-stage writing about volunteering. By contrast, participants assigned in the second stage either to volunteering, or to volunteering + writing, but who failed to complete these tasks, did not develop intrinsic interest in volunteering. These results are consistent with the theory underlying our two-stage compound-task mechanism.

Keywords: volunteering; incentives; pro-social attitudes; cognitive dissonance; field experiment

JEL Classification: C93; D02; D03; D04; D64; H41; Z13

Suggested Citation

Xiao, Erte and Houser, Daniel, SIGN ME UP! PROMOTING VOLUNTEERING WITH A COMPOUND TASK MECHANISM (June 12, 2022). GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 14-02, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2384322 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2384322

Erte Xiao (Contact Author)

Monash University ( email )

23 Innovation Walk
Wellington Road
Clayton, Victoria 3800
Australia

Daniel Houser

Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science ( email )

5th Floor, Vernon Smith Hall
George Mason University
Arlington, VA 22201
United States
7039934856 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://mason.gmu.edu/~dhouser/

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