Image Motivation
Less than 1% of private gifts to charity are anonymous.
Dan Ariely, Anat Bracha, and Stephan Meier (”Doing Good or Doing Well? Image Motivation and Monetary Incentives in Behaving Prosocially“) conducted an experiment where the number of times participants clicked an awkward combination of computer keys determined how much money was donated on their behalf to the American Red Cross. Since 92% of participants thought highly of the Red Cross, giving to it could reasonably be assumed to make people look good to their peers. People were randomly assigned to either a private group, where only the participant knew the amount of the donation, or a public group, where the participant had to stand up at the end of the session and share this information with the group. Participants exerted much greater effort in the public case: the average number of clicks, at 900, was nearly double the average of 520 clicks in the private case.
The researchers added to their experiment a monetary reward for participants. In private, being paid to click increased effort from 548 clicks to 740, but in public, there was next to no effect. Presumably, for the public clickers, the added motivation of financial reward was offset by the reduced appearance of generosity.