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  4. March 2009
  5. Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially

  • Dan Ariely
  • Anat Bracha
  • Stephan Meier
American Economic Review
vol. 99, no. 1, March 2009
(pp. 544–55)
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Abstract

This paper experimentally examines image motivation--the desire to be liked and well regarded by others--as a driver in prosocial behavior (doing good), and asks whether extrinsic monetary incentives (doing well) have a detrimental effect on prosocial behavior due to crowding out of image motivation. Using the unique property of image motivation--its dependency on visibility--we show that image is indeed an important part of the motivation to behave prosocially, and that extrinsic incentives crowd out image motivation. Therefore, monetary incentives are more likely to be counterproductive for public prosocial activities than for private ones. (JEL D64, L31, Z13)

Citation

Ariely, Dan, Anat Bracha, and Stephan Meier. 2009. "Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially." American Economic Review, 99 (1): 544–55. DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.1.544

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D64 Altruism
  • L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology