If I Can do It, So Can You: Leader and Peer Endorsement of Volunteering

Abstract

Social information, defined as information about what others have done, are doing or will be doing in future, is a powerful motivator of pro-social behaviour. However there is little research on the role of social information on volunteering, where work has instead examined socio-economic and demographic correlates, the role of personal networks and barriers to participation. In this paper we examine the effect of leader and peer endorsement as forms of social information where such endorsement provides a signal to others that these people value the activity and sets an example that others could emulate. The paper presents the results of a field experiment carried out in the autumn of 2013, which examined the effect of different forms of endorsement on volunteering activity amongst 100,000 students in five UK universities. We compare the effect on volunteering rates of politician, celebrity and peer endorsement from named people who have engaged in volunteering compared with a control group that has no such endorsement. We examine outcome measurements of click-throughs to volunteering unit websites, attendance at volunteering training, registration with volunteering units, and results from an all-student survey seven weeks after the original e-mails. We find student endorsements reduce click-throughs. There are treatment effects for endorsement by politicians on subsequent training. We find heterogeneity in treatment effects for registration and training, with both negative and positive effects of celebrity endorsements. Overall, we find some support for the provision of leader and celebrity endorsement, but confirm negative effects for peer endorsement in this context.

Keywords: experiments, volunteering