Journal of Northeastern University(Social Science) ›› 2020, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (4): 38-46.DOI: 10.15936/j.cnki.1008-3758.2020.04.006

• Economics and Management • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Will Incidental Awe Inspire People to Donate?

LIANG Jian-ping, GUO Lei-lei, LIU Zhao-bin   

  1. (Business School, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China)
  • Received:2019-10-18 Revised:2019-10-18 Online:2020-07-25 Published:2020-07-29
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Abstract: Awe is a common positive emotion. Based on the “donation decision model” and the “inspiration-help” hypothesis, this study examines how incidental awe affects people's donation behavior through two experiments. The results show that incidental awe can increase the willingness to donate by evoking the level of individuals' inspiration and enabling individuals to infer the donee's lack of self-help ability; openness to experience can play a moderating role in the above mechanism. Incidental awe can increase the donor's willingness to donate through the above two mediating mechanisms for individuals with high openness to experience, whereas for individuals with low openness to experience, incidental awe can only increase the willingness to donate by enabling individuals to infer the donee's lack of self-help ability.

Key words: awe, willingness to donate, openness to experience

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