When Payment Undermines the Pitch

Abstract

Studies on crowding out document that incentives sometimes backfire—decreasing motivation in prosocial tasks. In the present research, we demonstrated an additional channel through which incentives can be harmful. Incentivized advocates for a cause are perceived as less sincere than nonincentivized advocates and are ultimately less effective in persuading other people to donate. Further, the negative effects of incentives hold only when the incentives imply a selfish motive; advocates who are offered a matching incentive (i.e., who are told that the donations they successfully solicit will be matched), which is not incompatible with altruism, perform just as well as those who are not incentivized. Thus, incentives may affect prosocial outcomes in ways not previously investigated: by crowding out individuals’ sincerity of expression and thus their ability to gain support for a cause.

Keywords

incentives prosocial behavior altruism sincerity crowding out open data open materials

Incentives sometimes have perverse effects. When activities provide their own inherent reward, the introduction of an external motivator can displace intrinsic motivation and thereby reduce effort (for reviews, see Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; Gneezy, Meier, & Rey-Biel, 2011). Such effects are prevalent in prosocial behavior: External incentives have been shown to backfire, or crowd out a wide range of actions, including volunteering (Gneezy & Rustichini, 2000b), pro-environmental behavior (Cardenas, Stranlund, & Willis, 2000), contributions to public goods (Falkinger, Fehr, Gächter, & Winter-Ebmer, 2000), cooperation (Fehr & Rockenbach, 2003), and blood donations (Mellström & Johannesson, 2008; but see Lacetera & Macis, 2010).

These findings highlight the incompatibility, in people’s minds, between altruism and self-interest. Incentives represent an economic exchange performed for self-interested gain, which is incongruous with the communal norms associated with helping (Fiske, 1991). Thus, people judge others as less altruistic when they benefit from their good deeds (Lin-Healy & Small, 2013; Newman & Cain, 2014). Moreover, people often seek out costly or painful ways of helping to demonstrate that their motives are pure (Olivola & Shafir, 2013).

Incentives are typically thought to affect behavior through the channel of motivation. Therefore, past investigations of crowding out have examined effort, persistence, and monetary contributions allocated toward helping others. These measures make sense in contexts for which no special skills are needed, such that there is a close correspondence between effort and outcome (e.g., giving blood, recycling). However, sometimes doing good requires more than just effort. Fund-raising, in particular, requires the ability to communicate persuasively. In the present research, we investigated this additional channel though which incentives may matter.

Specifically, we examined how incentives affect an advocate’s ability to persuade other people to donate to a cause. We predicted that, ceteris paribus, the best advocates for a cause are those whose motives are pure. Without any incentive, caring individuals will express their true concern for a cause in a way that appears sincere to others. However, when an incentive is introduced, the same actions seem disingenuous—impeding individuals from effectively communicating that they care.

We further expected that donors would be sensitive to the sincerity of an advocate’s pitch and that this would affect their donations. When evaluating other people’s prosocial behavior, individuals place a strong emphasis on perceptions that those other people are genuine (Barasch, Levine, Berman, & Small, 2014) and respond negatively toward those with a possible ulterior motive (Critcher & Dunning, 2011; Fein & Hilton, 1994; Lin-Healy & Small, 2013; Newman & Cain, 2014). We predicted that donors would detect less sincerity in persuaders who had been selfishly incentivized—even though the donors did not know that incentives were present—and that this would reduce their contributions.

Study 1: Fund-Raising for a Breast-Cancer Charity

Method

The first study took place in two phases. In Phase 1, 36 volunteers (66.7% female, 33.3% male) were recruited at a community event raising money for an organization that supports breast-cancer research and awareness. We recruited at this event in order to target people who were likely to have a strong preexisting motivation to help the cause. Attendees were asked to come independently to an isolated area of the event to participate in a study aimed at benefiting the breast-cancer organization.

These participants (hereafter referred to as persuaders) met first with an instructions assistant, who told them that they would make a videotaped pitch for the breast-cancer organization. The video would later be shown to potential donors, and the persuaders’ task was to do their best to persuade those individuals to donate to the cause.

Next, each persuader was assigned to a condition in a two-group between-subjects design. In both conditions, persuaders read that other people would subsequently view their videos and have a chance to donate to the organization. In the incentive condition, persuaders also read the following: “As a bonus, for every $10 that the potential donor gives to your charity organization, we will send you a $1 reward. In other words, the more money that someone donates to the cause, the more money you will be paid.” In the no-incentive condition, this statement was omitted. Each persuader then signed a consent form, agreeing to be videotaped. No one opted out of the study or refused payment after being assigned to a condition, so selection cannot explain our findings.

Each persuader was then introduced to a condition-blind video assistant, who recorded the persuader’s charity appeal on videotape in a separate area. The video assistant instructed the persuader to begin speaking whenever he or she was ready. After the video was recorded, the persuader was thanked and dismissed.

Phase 2 of the study involved a separate sample of 243 target donors (57.6% female, 39.9% male, 2.5% unreported; mean age = 26.1 years) who signed up to participate in an hour-long lab session at a northeastern university in exchange for payment. There were 16 sessions scheduled over the course of a week, and the number of target donors was determined by the number of participants who signed up in advance for one of the sessions. Target donors were told that they would watch a video of an individual who had been asked to make an appeal for a charitable organization that he or she supports. They were also told that the person in the video had spoken without a script, and that the video had not been edited in any way. There was no mention of incentives.

Each target donor was assigned to watch one recorded charity-appeal video, which was randomly assigned and embedded in a survey. Thus, 6 to 7 target donors watched each Phase 1 video (243 target donors/36 videos = 6.75 target donors per video).

After watching the appeal, the target donors read that in addition to their standard participation fee of $10, they would receive $3, which they could choose to keep or donate in whole or in part to the cause advertised in the video. They were presented with a multiple-choice question asking how much they would like to donate (any amount between $0 and $3 in $1 increments). All donations were sent to the organization after the conclusion of the study.

Results

Persuader-level analyses

Persuader-level analyses focused on both objective features of the videos and subjective judgments of the persuaders.

One condition- and hypothesis-blind research assistant coded each video’s length and also whether the persuader spoke of a personal connection to the breast-cancer cause. There were no differences between the conditions in the length of the appeals (incentive: M = 42.00 s; no-incentive: M = 46.82 s), t(34) = 0.46, p = .65; the percentage of persuaders who mentioned that they knew someone who had been affected by breast cancer (incentive: 68%; no-incentive: 76%), χ²(1, N = 36) = 0.29, p = .59; or the percentage who mentioned that they had a family member affected by breast cancer (incentive: 32%; no-incentive: 53%), χ²(1, N = 36) = 1.69, p = .19.

In addition, two independent condition- and hypothesis-blind coders evaluated the persuaders on three dimensions: how sincere they seemed in their appeal, how emotional they seemed in their appeal, and how much they seemed to care about the breast-cancer organization (all on 7-point scales ranging from −3 to 3). The two coders’ ratings were highly correlated for each item (rs > .8), and ratings on all items were averaged to form an overall measure of perceived sincerity (α = .88). An independent-samples t test revealed a significant effect of condition on this measure, t(34) = −2.64, p = .01. Coders judged the persuaders to be less sincere when they received an incentive (M = 0.04, SD = 1.60) than when they did not receive an incentive (M = 1.27, SD = 1.14).

Target-donor-level analyses

To account for multiple target donors viewing each video, we analyzed the donation results with a nested (i.e., hierarchical) one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) that controlled for the groupings of persuaders nested within the main factor of incentive condition. Persuaders were treated as random effects.

As predicted, incentives to persuaders significantly reduced donation amounts, F(1, 207) = 6.50, p = .01, η_p² = .030. The target donors gave less money to charity in response to video appeals made by persuaders who had received an incentive (M = $0.52, SD = $0.89) than in response to video appeals made by persuaders who had not received an incentive (M = $0.87, SD = $1.15). Figure 1 displays the distribution of donations in each condition. We report additional analyses in the Supplemental Material available online.

Fig. 1.

Distribution of donation amounts by incentive condition in Study 1.

Study 2: Fund-Raising for a Charity of Choice

Study 2 involved different and larger samples of both persuaders and target donors, and also included follow-up surveys for both groups. The goal of this study was to determine if the previous findings could be replicated, and to further investigate how target donors perceive persuaders and how persuaders perceive themselves.

Method

The second study’s overall design was similar to that of Study 1. In Phase 1, we recruited 93 students (64.5% female, 35.5% male) from an on-campus service activities fair and from meetings of a wide variety of community-service organizations, rather than from an event for one specific cause. Students signed up to come to a laboratory for a study in order to benefit an organization of their choice.

In the lab, the students (hereafter referred to as persuaders) met independently with a hypothesis-blind instructions assistant, who told them to make a pitch on video camera for a charitable organization of their choice. As in Study 1, the persuaders were told that their videos would later be shown to potential donors and that their task was to do their best to persuade others to donate to the cause. Each persuader wrote down the name of the organization that he or she would support in the charity appeal. This step occurred before the manipulation to ensure that persuaders did not choose different causes on the basis of the presence or absence of an incentive. Persuaders were instructed not to select a religious or political organization, to reduce the chances that they would select causes that conflicted with the values of target donors. The persuaders were then randomly assigned to either the incentive or the no-incentive condition, and given the same instructions as in Study 1. All recruited students who came to the lab consented to the videotaping procedure, and nobody withdrew from the study at any point in time.

Next, each persuader was introduced to a condition- and hypothesis-blind video assistant in a separate room. Because the instructions assistant was aware of the condition assignment, she was never present during the video recording. To standardize the process across participants, the video assistant told each persuader, “When you are ready to begin, just tell me, and I’ll start the recording,” and gave no further instruction. If a persuader asked for more guidance, the video assistant simply said, “Please just follow the instructions given to you at the beginning.”

After the persuaders finished their charity appeals, they completed a short survey that asked how much effort they had put into the appeal, how sympathetic they felt toward the cause, and how uncomfortable they had felt making the appeal (all rated on 7-point scales). The survey also asked the persuaders to describe any personal connections they had to the organization they had chosen. Finally, they were thanked and dismissed.

Phase 2 of the study involved a separate sample of 465 target donors (35.3% female, 64.7% male; mean age = 30.1 years), who participated in an online survey via Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for payment. The results from the first study were utilized to determine the size of the target-donor sample needed to achieve sufficient power for the second study (see the Supplemental Material).

Each target donor was assigned to watch one recorded charity appeal, which was randomly assigned and embedded in an online survey. Thus, 5 target donors watched each video from the first phase of the study. Target donors were given the same instructions as in Study 1.

After watching the appeal, the target donors read that in addition to their standard participation fee of 50¢, they would receive 30¢ that they could choose to keep or donate in whole or in part to the cause advertised in the video. They were presented with a slider scale to indicate how much they would like to donate (from 0¢ to 30¢). The payments used in this study reflect the standard compensation expectations of Mechanical Turk workers (Horton & Chilton, 2010).

Finally, the target donors responded to a number of items evaluating the persuaders they had viewed: “How sincere was this individual?” “How genuine was this individual?” “How much did the individual care about their cause?” “How deep is this individual’s commitment to their cause?” “How emotional was the individual?” and “How much feeling did the individual express?” These ratings were averaged to form a six-item measure of perceived sincerity (α = .94). In addition, the target donors evaluated how uncomfortable the persuader had appeared using the following items: “How uncomfortable was the individual?” and “How nervous was the individual?” These ratings were averaged to form a two-item measure of perceived discomfort, r(465) = .78, p < .001. All items were rated on 7-point scales.

Results

Persuader-level analyses

Persuader-level analyses focused on objective features of the videos and persuaders’ responses to the postvideo survey.

One condition- and hypothesis-blind research assistant coded each video’s length, and also whether the persuader spoke of a personal connection to the cause. There were no differences between the conditions in the length of the appeals (incentive: M = 78.66 s; no-incentive: M = 81.46 s), t(91) = 0.37, p = .71; the percentage of persuaders who mentioned that they volunteered for the cause (incentive: 51%; no-incentive: 44%), χ²(1, N = 93) = 0.54, p = .46; or the percentage who spoke about another personal connection, such as a loved one who had suffered from the misfortune that the cause is aimed at alleviating (incentive: 21%; no-incentive: 24%). χ²(1, N = 93) = 0.09, p = .76.

We next examined the persuaders’ responses to the postvideo survey. As expected given the random assignment, there were no significant differences between the conditions in the percentage of persuaders who reported that they had volunteered for the cause in the past (incentive: 57%; no-incentive: 48%), χ²(1, N = 93) = 0.86, p = .35, or had another personal connection to the cause (incentive: 23%; no-incentive: 33%), χ²(1, N = 93) = 0.98, p = .32. There were also no significant differences in how much effort the persuaders reported putting into their charity appeals (incentive: M = 4.79; no-incentive: M = 4.83), t(91) = −0.14, p = .89; how sympathetic they felt toward their cause (incentive: M = 6.32; no-incentive: M = 6.41), t(91) = −0.51, p = .61; or how uncomfortable they felt while making their charity appeals (incentive: M = 3.81; no-incentive: M = 3.89), t(91) = −0.25, p = .80.

In sum, the persuader-level analyses suggest that the incentive manipulation did not affect certain concrete aspects of the persuaders’ pitches. Moreover, the manipulation did not affect the persuaders’ assessment of their own effort, sympathy, or discomfort.

Target-donor-level analyses

The target-donor-level analyses focused on donation amounts in Phase 2 and the target donors’ judgments about the persuaders’ sincerity and discomfort. All data were analyzed with nested one-way ANOVAs (i.e., hierarchical ANOVAs) that compared the no-incentive condition with the incentive condition while controlling for the groupings of persuaders nested within the main factor of incentive condition. Persuaders were treated as random effects.

As expected, incentives to the persuader significantly reduced donation amounts, F(1, 372) = 11.53, p < .001, η_p² = .030. The target donors gave less money when the persuader received an incentive for soliciting donations (M = 8.45¢, SD = 10.07) than when the persuader did not receive an incentive (M = 11.95¢, SD = 11.95), even though the target donors were unaware of the existence of any incentive. Figure 2 displays the distribution of donations in each condition.

Fig. 2.

Distribution of donation amounts by incentive condition in Study 2.

The same analysis was repeated for the six-item measure of perceived sincerity and the two-item measure of perceived discomfort. Results show that the target donors judged the persuaders to be less sincere when the persuaders had received an incentive (M = 4.71, SD = 1.37) than when they had not received an incentive (M = 5.03, SD = 1.28), F(1, 372) = 7.52, p < .01, η_p² = .020. Results for perceived discomfort were consistent with the persuaders’ self-reports, as there were no differences between the conditions in perceived discomfort of the persuaders (incentive: M = 4.17, SD = 1.54; no-incentive: M = 4.01, SD = 1.55), F(1, 372) = 1.57, p = .21, η_p² = .004. This suggests that the incentivized persuaders were not simply feeling intimidated by the prospect of getting feedback or choking under pressure from trying too hard (an unlikely alternative explanation for the effect of incentives given the small stakes; see Ariely, Gneezy, Loewenstein, & Mazar, 2009).

Mediation analysis

We predicted that perceived sincerity would mediate the effect of incentive condition on donation amount. Using bootstrap analyses (Hayes, Preacher, & Myers, 2011; MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007), we found that the 95% bias-corrected confidence interval (CI) for the size of the indirect effect excluded zero (indirect effect = −0.85, SE = 0.34, 95% CI = [−1.61, −0.24]); incentives decreased the perception that a persuader sincerely cared about the cause (a = −0.32, p < .01), which in turn decreased how much the target donors gave to the cause (b = 2.66, p < .001). Once we included perceived sincerity in the model, the relationship between incentive condition and donation amount (c = −3.50, p = .001) became smaller but not insignificant (c′ = −2.65, p = .01), a result suggesting partial mediation. When we included perceived discomfort in the model as an additional mediator, there was not a significant indirect effect of discomfort (indirect effect = 0.02, SE = 0.07, 95% CI = [−0.07, 0.29]), and the indirect effect of perceived sincerity was unchanged (indirect effect = −0.87, SE = 0.35, 95% CI = [−1.60, −0.24]).

Study 3: Fund-Raising With a Matching Incentive

The goal of Study 3 was to see if the findings could be replicated and to examine one boundary condition. Our first two studies showed that incentives have a negative effect on perceived sincerity and donations. However, not all incentives signal selfishness. We hypothesized that when an incentive does not contradict persuaders’ pure motives for helping others, it will not hurt persuaders’ effectiveness. Therefore, in our third study, we included a condition with a nonselfish, matching incentive. In addition, this study used larger incentives and a greater range of possible donation amounts than the previous ones did.

Method

The procedures of this study were similar to those of Study 2. In Phase 1, we recruited students at a northeastern university to participate in an hour-long session at a behavioral lab. Our goal was to encourage only people who were intrinsically motivated to help others to participate (i.e., we wanted to focus on people who we predicted would be adversely affected by a personal incentive). All attendees read an instruction sheet notifying them that we were “recruiting students who really care about a cause.” They could choose their favorite charity organization and have an opportunity to raise money for their cause. If they chose not to participate, they would be allowed to leave early from the lab session. Attendees indicated their desire to participate by checking a “yes” or “no” box on the instruction sheet.

The target sample size was 120 students for this phase of the study (40 students per condition). After 6 weeks, we recruited 118 participants (58.5% female, 41.5% male; approximately 9.8% of the participants in the lab sessions).

The students who agreed to participate (hereafter referred to as persuaders) then met independently with a hypothesis-blind instructions assistant, who gave him the same instructions as in Study 2. In addition, before random assignment to condition, each persuader wrote down the name of the organization that he or she would advocate for in the appeal.

The persuaders were then randomly assigned to condition in a three-group between-subjects design. As in the previous studies, persuaders in the no-incentive condition simply learned about the task. Persuaders in the personal-incentive condition also read the following:

As a bonus, for every $10 that is donated to your charity organization, we will pay you an additional $10 for you to keep. In other words, the more money people donate to the cause from watching your charity appeal, the more money we will pay you.

Note that the potential reward for an effective charity appeal was larger in this study than in the previous studies, in terms of both the percentage of the total money raised (10% in Studies 1 and 2 vs. 100% in Study 3) and the number of dollars mentioned as a reference point ($1 vs. $10). In the matching-incentive condition, persuaders instead read the following:

As a bonus, for every $10 that is donated to your charity organization, we will “match” it by giving an additional $10 to the cause. In other words, the more money people donate to the cause from watching your charity appeal, the more money we will give to that cause.

This incentive was designed to be identical to the personal incentive in wording and incentive size. The only difference was whether the incentive would go to the individual making the appeal or to the cause. Again, no participants declined to participate in the study after learning about the incentives.

Next, each persuader recorded his or her charity pitch on videotape in a separate room. The video assistant, who was blind both to the hypothesis and to condition, gave the same video-recording instructions as in Study 2. Finally, after the persuader finished taping, he or she completed the same short survey from Study 2 and then was dismissed.

Before conducting Phase 2 of the study, we excluded three videos that were deemed unusable: one that was discovered to be from a participant who was already in the sample and two that lasted over 6 min (more than 5 SD above the mean time of the charity appeals, and too long for our budgeted Mechanical Turk payment). The rest of the videos ranged in length from 18 to 255 s. We were blind to condition when making this exclusion decision.

In Phase 2, we showed the remaining 115 videos to a separate sample of 861 target donors (38.0% female, 61.7% male, 0.3% unreported; mean age = 33.0 years), who participated in an online survey via Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk in exchange for payment. Each target donor watched one recorded charity appeal, which was randomly assigned and embedded in an online survey. Six to 8 target donors watched each video.

After watching the appeal, the target donors read that in addition to their standard participation fee of 50¢, they would receive $1, which they could choose to keep or donate in whole or in part to the cause advertised in the video. They were presented with a slider scale to indicate how much they would like to donate (from 0¢ to 100¢). A $1 bonus is substantial in the Mechanical Turk environment; in addition, this bonus equaled 200% of their payment for participation in the task.

Finally, the target donors evaluated the persuaders they had viewed, using the same six-item measure of perceived sincerity (α = .94) and two-item measure of perceived discomfort, r(861) = .75, p < .001, as in the previous study.

Results

Persuader-level analyses

As in Study 2, the persuader-level analyses focused on objective features of the videos and the persuaders’ responses to the postvideo survey.

A condition- and hypothesis-blind research assistant coded the length of each video and also whether the persuader spoke of a personal connection to the cause. The conditions did not differ in the length of the appeals (personal-incentive: M = 69.79 s; no-incentive: M = 69.29 s; matching-incentive: M = 66.42 s), F(2, 112) = 0.09, p = .92; the percentage of persuaders who mentioned that they volunteered for the cause (personal-incentive: 13%; no-incentive: 26%; matching-incentive: 16%), χ²(2, N = 115) = 2.58, p = .28; or the percentage who spoke about another personal connection, such as a loved one who had suffered from the misfortune that the cause was aimed at alleviating (personal-incentive: 31%; no-incentive: 53%, matching-incentive: 45%), χ²(2, N = 115) = 3.87, p = .15.

We next examined the persuaders’ responses in the postvideo survey. As expected given the random assignment, the conditions did not differ significantly in the percentage of persuaders who reported that they had volunteered for the cause in the past (personal-incentive: 26%; no-incentive: 29%; matching-incentive: 26%), χ²(2, N = 115) = 0.12, p = .94, or had another personal connection to the cause (personal-incentive: 59%; no-incentive: 58%; matching-incentive: 55%), χ²(1, N = 115) = 0.11, p = .94. There were also no significant differences in how much effort the persuaders reported putting into their charity appeals (personal-incentive: M = 5.18; no-incentive: M = 5.26; matching-incentive: M = 5.53), F(2, 112) = 1.21, p = .30; how sympathetic they felt toward their cause (personal-incentive: M = 6.26; no-incentive: M = 6.29; matching-incentive: M = 6.61), F(2, 112) = 1.88, p = .16; and how uncomfortable they had felt while making their charity appeals (personal-incentive: M = 4.03; no-incentive: M = 3.66; matching-incentive: M = 3.84), F(2, 112) = 0.41, p = .66.

As before, this analysis shows that the incentives did not affect certain concrete aspects of the persuaders’ pitches and did not affect the persuaders’ assessment of their own effort, sympathy, or discomfort.

Target-donor-level analyses

As in Study 2, our target-donor-level analyses examined donation amounts, as well as the target donors’ postvideo judgments about the persuaders. All the data were analyzed with nested one-way ANOVAs (i.e., hierarchical ANOVAs) that compared the three incentive conditions while controlling for the groupings of persuaders nested within the main factor of incentive condition. Persuaders were treated as random effects.

There was an overall effect of incentive condition on donation amounts, F(2, 746) = 5.19, p < .01, η_p² = .014. As in the previous studies, the target donors gave less money when the persuaders received a personal incentive for soliciting donations (M = 18.83¢, SD = 27.48) than when the persuaders did not receive an incentive (M = 26.16¢, SD = 34.35), F(1, 503) = 7.86, p < .01, η_p² = .010, even though the target donors were unaware of the existence of any incentive. Moreover, donation amounts did not differ between the matching-incentive condition (M = 26.21¢, SD = 34.37) and the no-incentive condition, F(1, 492) = 0.00, p = .98, η_p² = .00, and donation amounts were greater in the matching-incentive condition than in the personal-incentive condition, F(1, 497) = 7.63, p < .01, η_p² = .010. Figure 3 displays the distribution of donations in each of the three conditions.

Fig. 3.

Distribution of donation amounts by incentive condition in Study 3.

The same analysis was repeated for the six-item measure of perceived sincerity and the two-item measure of perceived discomfort. The overall effect of incentive condition on perceptions of sincerity was significant, F(2, 746) = 4.12, p = .02, η_p² = .011. Planned contrasts revealed that, as in Study 2, the target donors judged the persuaders to be less sincere when they received a personal incentive (M = 4.67, SD = 1.30) than when they did not receive an incentive (M = 4.97, SD = 1.30), F(1, 503) = 8.15, p < .01, η_p² = .011. However, persuaders who received a matching incentive were perceived as marginally more sincere (M = 4.85, SD = 1.27) than those who received a personal incentive, F(1, 497) = 2.79, p = .095, η_p² = .004, and about as sincere as those who received no incentive, F(1, 492) = 1.35, p = .25, η_p² = .002.

Further, results for perceived discomfort were consistent with the persuaders’ self-reports, as there were no differences in perceptions of discomfort across the conditions (personal-incentive: M = 4.18, SD = 1.57; no-incentive: M = 3.95, SD = 1.51; matching-incentive: M = 4.11, SD = 1.66), F(2, 746) = 2.00, p = .14, η_p² = .005. Note that although the evidence suggests that the incompatibility between self-interest and altruism causes incentivized advocates to be less persuasive than nonincentivized advocates, this incompatibility does not seem to yield any feelings or displays of discomfort.

Mediation analysis

Finally, we examined the target-donor-level data using a bootstrap analyses with 10,000 samples (Hayes et al., 2011; MacKinnon et al., 2007). Incentive condition was the independent variable, perceived sincerity was the mediator, and donation amount was the dependent variable. The effects found in Study 2 were replicated. The 95% CI for the comparison between the no-incentive and personal-incentive conditions did not include zero (indirect effect = −2.16, SE = 0.84, 95% CI = [−3.93, −0.64]), which indicates that perceived sincerity mediated the effect of incentive condition on donation amount. Specifically, we found that incentives decreased the perception that a persuader sincerely cared about a cause (a = −0.29, p < .01), which in turn decreased how much the target donors gave to the cause (b = 7.39, p < .001). Once we included perceived sincerity in the model, the relationship between incentive condition and donation amount (c = −7.33, p < .01) became smaller but not insignificant (c′ = −5.17, p = .04), a result suggesting partial mediation. When we included perceived discomfort in the model as an additional mediator, it did not have a significant indirect effect (indirect effect = 0.22, SE = 0.25, 95% CI = [−0.11, 0.98]), and the indirect effect of perceived sincerity was unchanged (indirect effect = −2.26, SE = 0.87, 95% CI = [−4.09, −0.65]).

A separate mediation model that compared the matching-incentive and personal-incentive conditions revealed that perceived sincerity did not mediate the effect of incentive condition on donation amount (indirect effect = −1.40, SE = 0.887, 95% CI = [−3.16, 0.21]). A closer examination of the pathways showed that this was because relative to a matching incentive, a personal incentive only marginally decreased the perception that the persuader sincerely cared about a cause (a = −0.18, p = .098). Nonetheless, decreased perceived sincerity reduced how much the target donors gave to the cause (b = 7.86, p < .001), and once we included perceived sincerity in the model, the relationship between incentive condition and donation amount (c = −7.38, p < .01) became smaller (c′ = −5.99, p = .02).

General Discussion

Individuals often receive compensation for being spokespeople for causes, soliciting donations, or crafting persuasive messages for charity. In the studies presented here, we attempted to capture what happens in such interpersonal persuasive contexts, in which the success of an appeal relies on an individual’s ability to communicate pure intentions. We found that tainting intrinsically motivated persuaders with a personal incentive reduces their persuasiveness: Observers detect reduced sincerity and contribute less as a result.

These findings extend previous studies of crowding out, which focused on effort and examined tasks that did not involve skill. The task we employed required little effort: Participants committed to the task prior to random assignment, had no time to prepare, and spoke on video for a brief amount of time. Further, self-reported effort and duration of the appeals did not differ across the conditions. Instead, the success of the task depended on the ability to convey sincerity—a critical skill that was not captured in past research.

Although we found that target donors view incentivized persuaders as less sincere than nonincentivized persuaders, it remains unclear if incentives actually make persuaders feel less empathic, or if they render persuaders less capable of communicating their concern. Note that although the target donors judged the incentivized persuaders to be less sincere, the persuaders’ self-reports of sympathy did not differ across conditions; the persuaders in all conditions in Studies 2 and 3 reported extremely high levels of sympathy (Ms > 6 on a 7-point scale). However, their responses may reflect preestablished feelings, or the persuaders may not have wanted to report less sympathy for self-image or self-presentational reasons. This could also be an instance in which observers have insight beyond what the actors themselves report (cf. Ekman, 1993; Vazire & Carlson, 2012).

By demonstrating that personal incentives, but not matching incentives, harm persuasiveness, we have provided evidence that the incompatibility of self-interest and altruism is necessary for incentives to undermine persuasion. Future research can explore additional boundary conditions, as has been done in the literature on incentives and motivation (Deci et al., 1999; Eisenberger, Pierce, & Cameron, 1999; Gneezy et al., 2011; Gneezy & Rustichini, 2000a, 2000b; Heyman & Ariely, 2004). It is possible that other forms or sizes of incentives would not undermine sincerity in the same way (e.g., verbal rewards—Cameron, Banko, & Pierce, 2001; gifts—Shaffer & Arkes, 2009; large incentives—Imas, 2014).

In addition, though our research examined advocates for charitable causes, future research could identify other domains in which incentives negatively affect persuasiveness. Whenever a conflict of interest exists between an advocate’s advice and selfish motives (e.g., doctors advocating treatment to patients when earning referral fees), it may be the case that incentives diminish sincerity. However, advocating for prosocial causes is likely to involve the most conspicuous conflict because of the direct incompatibility between altruism and self-interest.

In sum, we have shown how incentives can negatively affect people’s ability to advocate for a cause. Nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that there can still be good reasons to pay for prosocial activities. Incentives might engage people who would otherwise not help at all, and they may help recruit better talent within a competitive landscape (e.g., Ashraf, Bandiera, & Lee, 2015). Future research could examine the combined impact of incentives on selection, effort, and sincerity, for a broader understanding of when incentives should be employed. Ultimately, it is important to recognize both the advantages and the limits of incentives in a world where sincerity matters.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Wes Hutchinson, Raghu Iyengar, Gal Zauberman, and Evan Weingarten for their feedback and suggestions, and the Wharton Behavioral Lab, Gabriela Coya, Lance Gurewitz, and Aileen Lee for their assistance in data collection.

Action Editor

Hal Arkes served as action editor for this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared that they had no conflicts of interest with respect to their authorship or the publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

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All data and materials have been made publicly available via the Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/mytx9/. The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data. This article has received badges for Open Data and Open Materials. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/1.%20View%20the%20Badges/ and .

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