Moral suasion and charitable giving

This is the final version. Available on open access from nature Research via the DOI in this recordData availability: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.We investigate the effect of moral suasion on charitable giving. Participants in an online experiment choose between two allocations, one of which includes a donation to a well-known charity organization. Before making this choice, they receive one of several messages potentially involving a moral argument from another participant. We find that the use of consequentialist and deontological arguments has a positive impact on the donation rate. Men respond strongly to consequentialist arguments, while women are less responsive to moral suasion altogether. Messages based on virtue ethics, ethical egoism, and a simple donation imperative are ineffective.Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung