Unit Asking — a method for increasing donations: A replication and extension

Abstract

We replicate and extend unit asking – a method to increase donations by first asking donors for their willingness to donate for one unit and then asking for donations for multiple units (Hsee, Zhang & Xu, 2013) We conducted a large scale replication and extension using a 2 (unit asking, control) × 3 (domains; children (original), animals, environment) between-subjects design. Across three domains, we find that unit asking increased donations, suggesting that this method can be used to increase giving to different charitable causes.

Keywords

• unit asking
• donations
• charity
• scope insensitivity
• willingness to donate
• animal conservation
• environmental protection