Natural disasters and other traumatic events often draw a greater charitable response than do ongoing misfortunes, even those that may cause even more widespread misery, such as famine or malaria. Why is the response disproportionate to need? The notion of reference dependence critical to...

Why do different people give to different causes? We show that the sympathy inherent to a close relationship with a victim extends to other victims suffering from the same misfortunes that have afflicted their friends and loved ones. Both sympathy and donations are greater among those related to...

Although much research finds that ldquo;birds of a feather flock together,rdquo; the present research suggests that opposites tend to attract when it comes to certain spending tendencies. That is, ldquo;tightwads,rdquo; who generally spend less than they would ideally like to spend, and...

Are charitable donors always perceived as charitable? Three studies suggest that although having a personal connection to a cause motivates much charitable giving, donors who have been personally affected by the target cause are given less “credit” for their donations, i.e., are perceived as...