the effect of the word “loving” on compliance to a fundraising request: evidence from a french...

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector MarketingInt. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 16: 371–380 (2011)Published online 7 July 2011 in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.416

The effect of the word “Loving” oncompliance to a fundraising request:evidence from a French field studyNicolas Guéguen*, Céline Jacob and Virginie Charles‐SireUniversité de Bretagne‐Sud, rue de la loi, Vannes, France

• In a field setting, students (N=1800) on different campus locations were asked by a young

female confederate for a donation during a health fundraising solicitation (French Téléthon). The

solicitor wore a white tee‐shirt with different inscriptions: no inscription, “Loving =Helping”, and

“Donating =Helping”. Results found that, compared with the no inscription condition, the number

of donators increased when the tee‐shirt “Loving =Helping” was worn by the solicitor‐confederate

and decreased when wearing the tee‐shirt “Donating =Helping”. The activation spreading theory

is used to explain these results. Practical interest for health fundraising organizations is developed.

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

Why would it be important to know the processesand the techniques that lead people to give to char-itable causes? Obviously, the answer is of great prac-tical importance for organizations that rely onfundraising as a source of income. Charitable dona-tions form a substantial portion of income for manynonprofit organizations across the world (Anheierand Salamon, 2006). Thus, knowing the processesand techniques that are predictive of donation be-come essential for such organizations.A recent paper of Bekkers and Wiepking (2010),

reviewed more than 500 papers around the centralquestion of why people donate to charitable organi-zations. They have identified a number of papersthat focused on solicitation techniques. It seems thatthe way potential donors are solicited determinesthe effectiveness of the fundraising campaign.

*Correspondence to: Nicolas Guéguen, Université de Bretagne‐Sud, Rue de la loi , Vannes 56000, France.E‐mail: nicolas.gueguen@univ‐ubs.fr


Fundraising is a significant means for nonprofitorganizations to obtain money for their operations.In France, since 1987, an annual Téléthon, for themuscular dystrophy charity in France, L’Associationfrançaise contre les myopathies (French Associa-

tion against Muscular Dystrophy), is held eachyear during the first weekend of December. Severalevents are organized all around the country. Dona-tions are requested in order to finance medical re-search programs on several genetic musculardiseases. A host of volunteers solicited people in var-ious locations to give money during this event. ThisTéléthon is very popular in France, and the amountof donation increases each year. However, it’s theonly national charitable event that exists in thiscountry. Most of the time, in France, charitable orga-nizations use personalized mail, telephone contactor TV advertising in order to obtain money fortheir operation (Mermet, 2010). Since 1990, a 5% in-crease in donations per year has been observed inFrance whereas the economic growth was around3% per year during the same period (Malet, 2007).This author also found that if an increase in the

Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2011

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372 Nicolas Guéguen et al.

number of donators was found during the last de-cade, only one out of four adults gives money to acharitable organization per year. Thus Mallet(2007) argues that there is a need to develop market-ing fundraising strategies to incite French people todonate more frequently.To gain compliance with a fundraising request,

many techniques exist in social psychology litera-ture (see Pratkanis, 2007 for a review). A large partof these techniques use sequential requests: thefoot‐in‐the‐door technique (Freedman and Fraser,1966), the door‐in‐the‐face technique (Cialdiniet al., 1975, the low‐ball tactic (Cialdini et al.,1978), the lure (Joule et al., 1989), and the 1‐in‐5prize tactic (Horvitz and Pratkanis, 2002). Some ofthem use ingratiation techniques such as flattery(Dunyon et al., 2010), incidental similarity (Burgeret al., 2004) or mimicry (Van Baaren et al., 2004).Others use nonverbal behaviors displayed by the so-licitor such as tactile contact (Kleinke, 1977), smil-ing (Solomon, et al. 1981) or gazing (Kleinke,1980). The objective of the experiment presentedhereafter was to test the efficiency of a word‐primingtechnique on receptivity to a fund request made dur-ing the 2010 annual French Muscular DystrophyFundraising Campaign.

Priming and influence behavior

Previous research on priming has demonstrated thatthe activation of a concept or mental representationcan exert an influence on subsequent informationprocessing or behavior. Bargh et al. (1996) foundthat participants primed with words related to theelderly stereotype (e.g., traditional, retired) walkedmore slowly than those of a control group whenleaving the experiment; also, participants primedwith the concept of rudeness interrupted the exper-imenter more quickly and frequently than did parti-cipants primed with the concept of politeness. Afterexposure to sentences describing stereotyped be-havior of dependence (e.g., can’t make decisions),participants rated a female target who performedidentical behavior as a male target as more depen-dent; after exposure to stereotyped behavior of ag-gression (e.g., threatens other people), participantsrated a male target as more aggressive than a femaletarget (Banaji et al., 1993). Moreover, impression


formation was unrelated to the explicit memoryfor primes. Priming effects can take place when sub-liminal priming techniques are employed (i.e., ex-tremely brief exposure to stimuli). Using thistechnique, Zemack‐Rugar et al. (2007) showed thatindividuals subliminally primed with guilt adjectiveswere more helpful than those primed with sadnessadjectives. Regardless of the duration of exposureto the stimulus, automatic or implicit social cogni-tion occurs when information processing is madewithout the person’s awareness, intention, possibil-ity of control, or effort (Bargh, 1994). To explainby which means mental representations can shapesocial behavior, theorists have hypothesized mentalstructures consisting of interconnected informationor attributes. The main assumption is the spreading

of activation, the activation of one concept beingassumed to spread along a network of meaningfullyassociated information. Activating the concept ofgender, for example, would activate the implicitknowledge structure of gender‐linked traits, stereo-types, and norms for behavior.

Surrounding cues and behavioral influence

Exposition to sentences, words and figures can alsobe analyzed as environmental cues that can affectthe behavior of the individual. Berkowitz andLePage (1967) found that in the presence of aweapon, a participant in a laboratory administeredmore electric shocks to a confederate than withoutthe presence of the weapon. In a restaurant, Jacobet al. (2011) displayed various figurative cues re-lated to the sea (a boat or the figurine of a sailor, anapkin with a picture of a boat, and poetry relatedto the sea) or not (control condition). The resultsshowed that figurative cues related to the sea in-creased the consumption of fish dishes. In a secondexperiment, they found the same effect with theword “fish” or fish drawings displayed in severalplaces in the dining room of the restaurant. Re-search also found that behavior is affected by pic-tures present in the immediate environment of anindividual. Feinberg (1986) showed that in the pres-ence of credit card cues, an individual was morelikely to give money to a charitable cause than indi-viduals who were not exposed to the credit cardcues. In a similar way, McCall and Belmont (1996)


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

373Love and altruism

found that a tip tray stamped with a credit card insig-nia led patrons in a restaurant to leave bigger tips forthe waiters or waitresses than when no insignia wasprimed on the tip tray. Using donation boxes locatedin various stores, Perrine and Heather (2000) foundthat a fundraising request for the profit of an organi-zation for animal welfare increased when color pic-tures of puppies were displayed on the donationboxes than when they were not.From a theoretical perspective, the behavioral

consequences of environmental cues are notexplained by a priming effect as before. Scientistsin marketing used the theoretical model of the stim-ulus‐organism‐response (SOR) to explain these be-havioral effects (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974,Donovan and Rossiter, 1982). In the context wherea verbal cue is a single word, this word is the stimu-lus (S), which causes a participant’s evaluation (O)and causes some behavioral response (R). Two dif-ferent evaluations are possible: positive or negative.Consequently, two behavioral responses are acti-vated: approach or avoidance. Approach behaviorsare seen as positive responses to someone or to anenvironment, such as a desire to interact with theperson or to explore the environment, whereas neg-ative responses include not wanting to interact withthe person or to spend time exploring the environ-ment. Therefore, it could be possible that a singleword could have the property of activating a posi-tive response, which in return leads the person,who is exposed to this word, to initiate contact withsomebody or to be motivated to perform further be-havior. The words “love” or “loving”, which are im-portant for the human culture, could be interestingconcepts to use for priming or as a cue in people’senvironment in order to influence their behaviors.

Love and helping behavior

Despite these advances in the field of priming, auto-matic social cognition or the role of environmentalcues on people’s behaviors, few attempts have beenmade to test the influence of an automatic activationof the cognition of love on social behavior. Lamyet al. (2008) in a natural setting, interviewed partici-pants in the street and asked to recall a memory in-volving love, or in the control condition, a piece ofmusic they loved. Then they met another


confederate who asked them for money. Resultsshowed that inducing the idea of love had a signifi-cant positive effect on compliance to the requestfor male passersby who were asked for help (givingsome money “to take the bus”) by a female confed-erate but not for female passersby. These resultswere confirmed in a more recent study (Fischer‐Lokou et al., 2009) where passersby were askedfor directions. It was found that participants in-duced to recall a memory of love agreed more favor-ably to give directions and spent more time givingdirections to the requester than participants in thecontrol condition who were induced to retrieve apiece of music they loved. By using the same meth-odology for inducing the idea of love versus the ideaof music, Lamy et al. (2009) observed participants’reactions toward a confederate who inadvertentlylost a stack of compact discs when they were neareach other. The results demonstrated that partici-pants were more helpful when they were inducedto recall a memory involving love.In these studies, participants were asked to recall

a memory of love that counted a lot for them, beforetheir helpfulness was tested. However, researchfound that such behavioral effects can be reachedin the absence of any direct reminiscence of loveor conscious awareness of love scripts, by meansof an automatic activation of love.In a recent experiment of Lamy et al. (2010),

male passersby were asked by a female confederateto indicate the direction of Saint‐Valentine street(Saint‐Martin street in the control group). Thirtymeters ahead, the participant encountered anotherfemale confederate who asked for help, pretendinga group of four disreputable‐looking male confeder-ates had taken her mobile telephone and refusedto give it back. It was found that participantsprimed with the cognition of Valentine helped thefemale confederate get her mobile back morefrequently than those primed with the cognition ofMartin.The objective of the present experiment was to

study the impact of a new, but more basic methodthat induced love cognition and to evaluate its effecton a new dependent variable associated with pro‐social behavior. We decided to test the effect ofthe single presence of the word “loving” on people’sbehavior. In the earlier mentioned studies, possibleconfound effects are associated with helping


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

Figure 1. Graphical representation of the Tee‐shirt used in the“Loving = Helping” condition.


behavior. Indeed, in these experiments, it was foundthat the love‐inducing variable led men to helpmore favorably a female confederate than a maleconfederate or that such a love inducing variablewas not efficient with female participants. Thus per-haps, the love‐inducing method led to further inter-est for romantic relations for men than for women,which, in return, led only men to help more favor-ably female confederates. Indeed, participants wereasked to recall a memory of a previous love episodethat occurred in their own lives. Such reminiscencecould increase motivation for further romantic rela-tions. In the same way, “Valentine”, which was usedas the priming concept in Lamy et al. (2010) study,is clearly associated with romantic relationshipsgiven the fact that Saint‐Valentine’s Day is the annualcommemoration held on 14 February celebratinglove and affection between intimate companions.Both types of priming information are clearly associ-ated with romantic and intimate relationships, butnot with general affection toward people. Thus, itcould be interesting to test the single effect of theword “Loving” without any other reminiscence onpeople’s altruistic behavior.In a recent paper by Bekkers and Wiepking

(2010), more than 500 papers were examined toevaluate why people donate money to charitableorganizations. They identified eight mechanisms asthe most important forces that lead to charitable giv-ing. One of them assumes that awareness of needis a prerequisite for philanthropy, and, generally,studies have found that perceived need is positivelyrelated to donation. Thus, a message for a fundrais-ing solicitation that has associated helping with lov-ing could increase the perception that the need toobtain money is greater. Indeed, “Love” is an impor-tant concept for human beings and is deeply relatednot only to romantic relationships but also tosupport, solidarity, and community relationships.Therefore, a request for help associated with thisconcept probably leads people exposed to suchinformation to infer that the request for help isneeded for the community.In this study, volunteers during a fundraising

campaign wore a tee‐shirt on which the word“loving” was written. It was hypothesized that suchan inscription would be associatedwithmore compli-ance to the altruistic request than in the controlcondition.


Method

Participants

The participants were 900 men and 900 women stu-dents who were solicited in various places of theCampus of Université de Bretagne‐Sud located onthe French West Atlantic Coast in Brittany.

Materials

For our confederates who solicited students on thecampus, a white short‐sleeved tee‐shirt was wornthat used several inscriptions on the front of thetee‐shirt. One tee‐shirt had no inscription, on thesecond one “Aimer =Aider” (“Loving =Helping)was written as is shown in Figure 1. On a thirdtee shirt, the inscription “Donner =Aider” (Donat-ing =Helping) appeared.

Procedure

Fifteen young female confederates (M=20.3 years,SD= 1.17) and 15 young male confederates(M= 20.4, SD= 1.39) were recruited in a social psy-chology course on a voluntary basis to act as confed-erates in the study during the week where theFrench Association against Muscular Dystrophy


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm


collects its funds (first week of December 2010). Ofcourse, the association agreed to all of the volun-teers, and the funds collected in this experimentwere completely transferred to the funding of the as-sociation. Each confederate wore a tee‐shirt, andthe rest of his/her clothing appearance was nearlythe same among female and male confederates:black trousers and a second black long sleeved tee‐shirt under the white tee‐shirt. Each confederatewore an official badge of the Association againstMuscular Dystrophy displayed for each volunteerduring this 2010 fundraising campaign.The experiment was conducted on different campus

locations in two towns in Brittany near theWest Atlanticcoast of France (Lorient and Vannes). The participantswere solicitedwhen entering different areas of the cam-pus: libraries, cafeteria, building departments…Each confederate was instructed to approach a

student entering one of the locations listed earlierby saying. “Hello, I am a volunteer for the Associa-

tion against Muscular Dystrophy. As you certainly

know, this week we are collecting money to sup-

port medical research. Would you accept to give

us something? This campaign is carried out all

over the country so even a little donation will help

us.” Then the confederate then estimated if the par-ticipant agreed or not to his/her request. In the caseof a negative answer, the confederate thanked theparticipant. In the case of a positive answer, he/she waited for the participant to give him/her themoney. The confederate estimated the amount andthanked the participant.

Table 1. Number of participants having complied with the requesticipant and of the confederate

Experimental condition Male participants

No inscriptionMale confederates 32.0% (48/150)Female confederates 31.3% (47/150)Total 31.7%“Loving=Helping”Male confederates 42.7% (64/150)Female confederates 44.0% (66/150)Total 43.3%“Donating =HelpingMale confederates 26.0% (39/150)Female confederates 23.3% (35/150)Total 24.7%


Each confederate was instructed to test 10 menand 10 women in each experimental condition.He/she was instructed to change tee‐shirts after test-ing five men and five women. The order of the tee‐shirts worn by the confederate was randomly deter-mined. To prevent possible variation in the confed-erate behavior according to the experimentalconditions, the confederates were not informedabout the experimental hypothesis. Indeed, a pre‐test was conducted in the street in order to trainthe confederate to become familiar with the requestand to verify that they acted in the same way in thethree experimental conditions.

Results

The dependent variables used in this experimentwere the number of participants who compliedwith the confederate’s request (Table 1) and theamount of money left by the participants who ac-cepted to make a donation (Table 2).With the number of participants who comply with

the confederate request, a 3 (experimental condi-tions)×2 (confederate gender)×2 (participant gender)Loglinear analysis test was performed. A main effectof the experimental conditions was found (χ²(2,N= 1800) = 36.01, p< 0.001, r=0.14). Additionalcomparisons revealed that the “no inscription” re-sponse condition was statistically different fromboth the “Loving =Helping” condition (34.5 vs.43.8%, χ²(1,N=1200) = 10.97, p=0.001, r= 0.09)

t in the experimental conditions according to gender of the par-

Female participants Total

36.0% (54/150) 34.0%38.7% (58/150) 35.0%37.3% 34.5%

46.7% (70/150) 44.7%42.0% (63/150) 43.0%44.3% 43.8%

31.3% (47/150) 28.7%28.7% (43/150) 26.0%30.0% 27.3%


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Table 2. Average amount of money (SD in parentheses) left by compliant participants in the experimental conditions according togender of the participant and of the confederate

Experimental condition Male participants Female participants Total

No inscriptionMale confederates 1.94 (1.36) 1.99 (1.46) 1.97 (1.40)Female confederates 2.06 (0.95) 2.09 (1.36) 2.07 (1.19)Total 2.00 (1.17) 2.04 (1.40) 2.02 (1.30)“Loving =Helping”Male confederates 2.46 (2.17) 2.66 (1.97) 2.56 (2.06)Female confederates 2.68 (1.72) 2.67 (1.70) 2.67 (1.70)Total 2.57 (1.95) 2.66 (1.84) 2.62 (1.89)“Donating =HelpingMale confederates 1.63 (0.98) 1.67 (1.42) 1.65 (1.24)Female confederates 1.87 (0.93) 1.97 (0.89) 1.92 (0.91)Total 1.76 (0.96) 1.81 (1.20) 1.79 (1.09)


and the “Donating =Helping” condition (34.5 vs27.3%, χ²(1,N=1200) = 7.21, p=0.007, r= 0.08).Comparison between the “Loving =Helping” condi-tion and the “Donating =Helping” condition was sig-nificant (43.8 vs 27.3%, χ²(1,N=1200) = 35.63,p< 0.001, r= 0.17). Neither the main effect of par-ticipant gender (χ²(1, N= 1800) = 3.16, p=0.08,r=0.04) nor the main effect of confederate gender(χ²(1, N= 1800) = 0.24, p=0.62, r=0.01) was signif-icant. We found no significant interaction betweenparticipant gender and/or confederate gender andexperiment conditions (p> .20).With the amount of money left by compliant par-

ticipants, a 3 (experimental conditions) × 2 (confed-erate gender) × 2 (participant gender) analysis ofvariance was performed. A main effect of the exper-imental condition was found (F(2, 634) = 17.50,p< 0.001, ηp² = 0.05). The post hoc test revealed thatthe “Loving‐helping” condition was statisticallydifferent from the “no inscription” condition (2.62vs 2.02, LSD test, p< 0.001) and the “Donating =Helping” condition (2.62 vs 1.79, LSD test,p< 0.001), whereas no statistical difference wasfound between the “Donating =Helping” conditionand the “no inscription” condition (1.79 vs 2.02,LSD test, p=0.14). Neither the main effect of partic-ipant gender (F(1, 634) = 0.31, p= 0.58, ηp² = 0.00)nor the main effect of confederate gender (F(1,634) = 1.72, p=0.19, ηp² = 0.00) was significant. Wefound no significant interaction between participantgender or confederate gender and experimentconditions.


Discussion

The results found in this experiment carried out in afield setting confirmed our hypothesis. The word“Loving” was associated with greater altruistic be-havior. Interestingly, a twofold effect was found inthis condition: more participants have compliedwith the fund request, and compliant participantsin this condition gave a higher amount of moneyto the confederate.Such results confirm previous research that showed

an influence of an automatic activation of thecognition of love on helping behavior (Fischer‐Lokouet al., 2009; Lamy et al., 2008; 2009). However, inthe latter studies, activation of such cognitions wasdone with the help of reminiscence of previous ro-mantic events in the participants’ lives. In a recentexperiment of Lamy et al. (2010), the single nameof a street was used to activate the same cognition.Passersby in the street were asked by a confederateto indicate the direction of Saint Valentine Street,which, in return, led them to help a second femaleconfederate more easily than passersby who werepreviously asked to indicate the direction of Saint‐Martin street. In these studies, it was found eachtime that love activation increased helping behavioronly when male participants have the opportunityto offer some help to a female confederate. Suchcognition had no effect when considering femaleparticipants and/or when help was solicited by amale confederate. In our experiment, we did notfind this gender effect. In all the conditions and in


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the “Loving =Helping” condition, we found thatboth male and female participants comply in thesame way to the helping request even when the re-quest was addressed either by a male or by a femaleconfederate. This no‐gender effect could beexplained by the fact that cognition of love used inthis experiment is not associated with romance orromantic relationships, but more probably with sup-port, solidarity, and community relationships. Thus,this could probably explain why cognition of love inour experiment led men and women to react in thesame way to the request addressed by our male andfemale confederates. In the studies of Fischer‐Lokouet al. (2009) and Lamy, Fischer‐Lokou, and Guéguen(2008; 2009; 2010), cognition of love was probablynot related with support, solidarity, and communityrelationship, but more clearly with romance, roman-tic relationships, courtship or, perhaps, with sex;and that is why only men reacted positively withsuch a priming effect when a woman asked themfor help. Following cultural stereotypes, it was con-sistently found that men were more eager for court-ship relations or sexual intercourse than women(Hatfield, 1983; Sadalla et al., 1987). Such a variationin male and female behavior could explain why, inthese studies, male passersby helped more favorablyfemale confederates than female passersby did. Cog-nition of love in these circumstances could haveprobably increased men’s desire for romantic rela-tionships, courtship or sex, which, in return, ledthem to help more favorably female confederates.Such cognition was probably not activated with fe-male passersby when help was requested by a maleconfederate and/or was not appropriated wheninteracting with a female confederate. In our exper-iment, different cognitions were activated with thepriming associated with love. Such cognitions canbe activated in the same way and with the samelevel with men and women, and that is why thesame rate of compliance was found according toparticipant and/or confederate gender. Primes asso-ciated with love are not the same in these studiesas in our experiment, and that is why discrepantresults were found in helping behavior accordingto participant gender.One further explanation for our results is to in-

terpret the effect of the word “loving” as a conse-quence of a positive mood activated, which inreturn led people to comply more favorably to


the request. Many experimental studies found thatpositive mood activation, compared with a neutralmood, increases helping behavior. This positivemood can be activated in many different waysand, most of the time, does not require elaboratemeans: a smile, crossing a beautiful person in thestreet, pleasant ambient smells in the street…(Harris and Smith, 1975; Levin and Isen, 1975; Wey-ant, 1978; Bizman et al., 1980; Job, 1987; Baron,1997; Forgas, 1997; 1998; Rind, 1997). Thus theword “loving” could have the property of activatingsuch a positive mood, which in turn influenceshelping behavior. Of course, this explanation isinteresting and needs to be evaluated in furtherexperiments. However, a recent study (Fisher‐Lokou et al., ) that replicated the studies of Lamy,Fischer‐Lokou, and Guéguen (2008; 2009; 2010) de-scribed earlier found that priming people with theidea of love was not associated with variation inthe mood score. Thus, it seems that mood is per-haps not the mediating effect between the word“loving” and the behavioral response of our partici-pants in our experiment.It was also found in this experiment that the mes-

sage “donating = helping” was associated with a de-crease in the number of participants whocomplied with the request. This effect could beexplained by the reactance theory (Wicklund,1974; Brehm and Brehm, 1981). This theoryassumes that people feel free to do certain things.When these perceived freedoms are threatened,people are motivated to restore them. In this exper-iment, “donating = helping” was perhaps perceivedby the participants as a form of order to comply,which probably activated some reactance and ledthem to comply less favorably to the request. InFrench, “donner” means “to donate” but the sameverb is also used when you want to order someoneto do something. Thus in our experiment, thisverb was perhaps interpreted as an order togive money, which in turn led the solicited par-ticipants to perceive that his or her freedom ofbehavior was threatened or restricted. This neg-ative feeling could explain why we found a sig-nificant decrease in compliance to the requestcompared with the control condition. It wouldbe interesting in a future study to evaluate thisfeeling of freedom associated with the messageprinted on the confederate’s tee‐shirt.


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Practical applicability for fundraisingprofessionals

This experiment has some practical interest. Fund-raising is a significant means used by health or hu-manitarian organizations to obtain money for theiroperations. It could be interesting for them to testvarious primes in their communication that acti-vated cognition associated with support, solidarity,and community relationships. According to theresults found in this experiment, it would be inter-esting to give the tee‐shirt “Loving =Helping” tothe thousands and thousands of volunteers who of-fer their time to the Association against MuscularDystrophy during its annual fundraising campaign.An important increase in the total amount of moneycollected could be expected. However, high precau-tion should be taken in the choice of words. In thisexperiment, we found that “Loving” was associatedwith an increase in the rate and the amount of dona-tion whereas “Donating” was associated with a de-crease. Thus, it appears that it is important to testa word prime on actual behavior. Various pre‐testsusing an experimental design seem to be a goodmethod to evaluate the efficiency of a prime. De-spite such precautions, this study has some interestto philanthropy professionals. This experiment con-ducted in a field setting demonstrates that simpleand low‐cost intervention can increase charitablegiving, and it is very easy to use the words “Loving =Helping” in various solicitation situations, such assolicitation addressed by mail, electronic mail,face‐to‐face interaction or printed on a badge wornby a solicitor. This technique is easy to replicate,easy to use, and so easy to adapt to various fundrais-ing solicitations and pro‐social requests.This study also confirms that marketers who work

with fundraising organizations could used picturesor physical objects that elicited altruism and dona-tions. Several studies have found that pictures andimages in fundraising advertising are associated withmore donations (Eayrs and Ellis, 1990; Perrine andHeather, 2000; Burt and Strongman, 2003). Theseauthors reported that images, which elicited thegreatest commitment to give money, were thosethat prompted feelings of guilt, sympathy, and pity.However, further feelings could be activated. Giventhe results found in this experiment, it could be ar-gued that there is a need to use and to evaluate the


role of physical objects associated with feelings ofcompassion, support or solidarity.

Limitations

Of course, this study had some methodological lim-itations. In this experiment, we examined only stu-dents’ compliance to a fundraising requestaddressed by a confederate of the same age. Previ-ous studies conducted with the “love”‐inducingtechnique (Fischer‐Lokou et al., 2009; Lamy et al.,2008; 2009) found that this technique still remainsefficient regardless of the participants’ age from 20to 60. However, these studies did not examine fund-raising requests. This study was conducted inFrance. Thus, the positive effect of the word “Lov-ing” on donation could not be generalized to othercountries. Indeed, previous studies that focused onactivation of the cognition of love on helping behav-ior (Fischer‐Lokou et al., 2009; Lamy et al., 2008;2009) were carried out in France. Thus, replicationsin further countries are now necessary. The sample‐sizes were moderate in this experiment, and replica-tion with higher sample‐size is required. However, arecent study conducted by Guéguen et al. (2011)found with a sample‐size of nearly 15,000 individ-uals that the locution “Loving =Helping” is associ-ated with a significant increase in a blood donationrequest. Thus, it seems that the “loving” evocatingeffect is robust and could be used with differentpro‐social requests. A second limitation is relatedwith the fact that the three experimental conditionswere performed by the confederates. Thus, it is pos-sible that the loving condition yielded more dona-tions because the confederates changed theirmanner of solicitation. Of course, this argument isallowable. However, the confederates were un-aware of the hypothesis made and were trained ina pre‐test to ensure that they acted in the sameway in the three conditions. Indeed, we found that“Donating =Helping” decreases compliance to therequest, but the confederates had no reason to thinkthat this condition would be less efficient than the“Loving =Helping” condition or at least than thecontrol condition. Finally, in the study of Guéguenet al. (2011), cited earlier, where donating bloodwas the request, a significant effect of the word“Loving” was found even though the experimentwas conducted with solicitation addressed by mail.


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Thus, in our current experiment, it seems that varia-tion could not be explained by variation in the con-federates’ behavior.

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