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Natnicha Laoongkaew, Khon Kaen University, ThailandAbstract
Discussions on the motives for making financial donations to charitable organizations sometimes arise regarding the contrasting notions of karma and altruism. While there are individuals who believe that donors are mainly motivated by altruistic motives, an alternative perspective suggests that people may also be influenced by the concept of karma, which believes that charitable acts lead to beneficial consequences for oneself. The objective of this research is to examine how contributors' intentions, which may be categorized as either karma or altruism, influence their distribution of money towards charities. Furthermore, the present research investigates the influence of identified victims on individuals' giving behavior. A laboratory study was conducted, including a total of 242 people who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a control group, an altruism framing group with a recipient who was identified, and a karma framing group. We presented persuasive messages to the participants, aiming to persuade them to contribute to underprivileged students. The results showed that donors who knew the organization's name and the recipient's identity donated more. Furthermore, the study found that karma framing would encourage participants to donate more when compared to those who received only the recipients' identities. In addition to karma framing, various motives behind karma, which involved people pursuing favorable outcomes for themselves, had an important effect on donation behavior. This study ultimately enhances our awareness of the details associated with donation behavior and identifies ways to persuade people to support charitable organizations.
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Conference: ACP2025Stream: Linguistics, Language & Psychology/Behavioral Science
This paper is part of the ACP2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Laoongkaew N. (2025) Karma or Altruism? Donor Motives and the Power of Recipient Identity in Charitable Giving ISSN: 2187-4743 – The Asian Conference on Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences 2025 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 155-166) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4743.2025.12
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4743.2025.12
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