The Effects of Social Information on Volunteering: A Field Experiment
通过实地实验，研究提供他人志愿服务时间的社会信息（非常高、高、中等）对个人志愿服务时长的影响，发现社会信息并未增加志愿服务，反而对低基线志愿者有消极作用。
Research indicates that providing social information about other people’s charitable donations can increase individual contributions. However, the effects of social information on volunteering time are underexplored. In this field experiment, we measure the effects of different levels of feedback about other people’s time contributions (very high, high, and moderate) on individuals’ hours of volunteering. The experiment was conducted with students from English universities volunteering for a variety of organizations and with a group of predominantly older people volunteering for a national charity in England. Social information did not increase volunteering for either group relative to a control group receiving individualized feedback with no social comparison. For students whose baseline volunteering time was lower than the median, social information had a demotivating effect, reducing their volunteering, suggesting that donating time is different to donating money.