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Inspire me to donate: The use of strength emotion in donation appeals
Author(s) -
Liang Jianping,
Chen Zengxiang,
Lei Jing
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of consumer psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.433
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1532-7663
pISSN - 1057-7408
DOI - 10.1016/j.jcps.2015.09.001
Subject(s) - sadness , donation , empathy , psychology , social psychology , negative emotion , anger , law , political science
Previous research has shown that the use of negative emotions such as sadness in donation appeals can make people empathetic towards the donation target, increasing their tendency to donate (the “empathy‐helping” hypothesis). In this research we propose an “inspiration‐helping” hypothesis, and find that the positive emotion of strength can inspire people to donate. We show that combining the positive emotion of strength and the negative emotion of sadness is more effective as a means of persuading people to donate than the sadness‐dominating or the strength‐dominating emotion.