The Kindness of Strangers: Theory and Evidence on Spatial Distance and Giving

Speaker: Prof James Konow

Affiliation: Loyola Marymount University

Zoom: https://uqz.zoom.us/j/82603079317

Abstract: Some people argue on moral grounds for directing charitable giving to where the benefit is greatest, which for most donors means donating to distant beneficiaries, but actual charitable giving contradicts this with most donations going to domestic beneficiaries. The evidence from controlled studies adds to the contradictions: it reveals a mixed set of results showing the giving-distance relationship to be direct, inverse, flat, or various combinations of the three. This paper reports a new theory of the distinctive relationship between giving and spatial distance as well as results on this relationship from four experimental studies. Two studies vary distances between donors and beneficiaries locally, specifically, they include a field experiment involving donations to local refugees and a laboratory experiment with donations to local people in need. Both local studies find a significant inverse relationship between giving and spatial distance. Two other studies involve variations at farther distances and comprise a laboratory experiment with distant beneficiaries and a survey experiment that considers possible confounding factors at those distances. The laboratory experiment does not find a significant effect at larger distances, and further analysis suggests that a confounding factor, viz., beneficiary need, contributes to that fact. The survey experiment indicates the relevance of numerous additional confounding factors in comparisons involving far distances. The experimental results are largely consistent with the predictions of the theory: morally motivated giving is decreasing in spatial distance, ceteris paribus, and is decreasing in exposure to displaced persons, decreasing in support for beneficiaries from sources external to the experiment (e.g., government aid), increasing in donor intrinsic generosity, and increasing in beneficiary need. In addition, we find qualified support involving a proxy for the hypothesized mediator between spatial distance and giving, moral salience. Together, these results confirm our focus on local distances to identify the distinctive relationship between giving and spatial distance, indicate the presence of additional factors that confound inferences over far distances, and offer an explanation that can reconcile the conflicting results on the giving-distance relationship in the literature.