Charitable appeals in money-related contexts: self-affirmation attenuates negative responses to charitable appeals

Prior research has shown that contextual cues surrounding ad exposure can influence how consumers process, evaluate, and respond to advertisements. Across three studies, we demonstrate that money-related contexts (which heighten a more self-focused orientation) reduce favourable responses to charitable appeals that emphasize concern for others. Specifically, money-related contexts ranging from a money-themed screensaver (Study 1) to exposure to money-related online news content (Study 2) and a broader money-related online browsing environment (Study 3) negatively influence responses to charitable appeals, including empathy toward people in need, attitudes toward the charitable appeal, and donation intentions. Importantly, we show that self-affirmation—whether experimentally induced (Study 1) or measured (Studies 2 and 3)—attenuates these effects. These findings contribute to research on charitable giving by identifying self-affirmation as an important boundary condition that shapes the extent to which money-related contexts undermine responses to charitable appeals.