Does the evaluability bias hold when giving to animal charities?

Abstract

When evaluating a charity by itself, people tend to overweight overhead costs in relation to cost-effectiveness. However, when evaluating charities side by side, they base their donations on cost-effectiveness. I conducted a replication and extension of Caviola et al. (2014; Study 1) using a 3 (High Overhead/Effectiveness, Low Overhead/Effectiveness, Both) x 2 (Humans, Animals) between-subjects design. I found that the overhead ratio is an easier attribute to evaluate than cost-effectiveness in separate evaluation, and, in joint evaluation, people allocate donations based on cost-effectiveness. This effect was observed for human charities, and to a lesser extent, for animal charities.

Keywords

• animal charity
• evaluability bias
• overhead aversion
• cost-effectiveness
• preference reversal
• pre-registration
• altruism