Do expressions of sadness, anxiety and fear have different impacts on attracting donations? Evidence from a Chinese online charitable crowdfunding platform
Information Technology & People
ISSN: 0959-3845
Article publication date: 14 November 2022
Issue publication date: 21 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Extant research shows mixed results on the impact of expressed negative emotions on donations in online charitable crowdfunding. This study solves the puzzle by examining how different types of negative emotions (i.e. sadness, anxiety and fear) expressed in crowdfunding project descriptions affect donations.
Design/methodology/approach
Data on 15,653 projects across four categories (medical assistance, education assistance, disaster assistance and poverty assistance) from September 2013 to May 2019 come from a leading online crowdfunding platform in China. Text analysis and regression models serve to test the hypotheses.
Findings
In the medical assistance category, the expression of sadness has an inverted U-shaped effect on donations, while the expression of anxiety has a negative effect. An appropriate number of sadness words is helpful but should not exceed five times. In the education assistance and disaster assistance categories, the expression of sadness has a positive effect on donations, but disclosure of anxiety and fear has no influence on donations. Expressions of sadness, anxiety and fear have no impact on donations in the poverty assistance category.
Research limitations/implications
This work has important implications for fundraisers on how to regulate the fundraisers' expressions of negative emotions in a project's description to attract donations. These insights are also relevant for online crowdfunding platforms.
Originality/value
Online crowdfunding research often studies negative emotions as a whole and does not differentiate project types. The current work contributes by empirically testing the impact of three types of negative emotions on donations across four major online crowdfunding categories.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Editor, the Associate Editor and the three anonymous reviewers for the helpful and insightful comments. This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 71772169, 71972175, and 72172146) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No: Y95402AXX2).
Citation
Ge, R., Zhang, S. and Zhao, H. (2023), "Do expressions of sadness, anxiety and fear have different impacts on attracting donations? Evidence from a Chinese online charitable crowdfunding platform", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 7, pp. 2869-2893. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-12-2021-0927
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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