Peer pressure
Charitable donations

An experiment conducted by Diane Reyniers and Richa Bhalla measured the amount donated by a group of London School of Economics students. The group was split into individual donators and pair donators. The donation amounts were revealed within each pair; then, the pair was given time to discuss their amounts and then revise them as necessary. In general, pair subjects donated an average of 3.64 pounds (Sterling) while individuals donated an average of 2.55 pounds. Furthermore, in pairs where one subject donated significantly more than the other, the latter would on average increase the donation amount by 0.55 pounds. This suggests that peer pressure "shames" individuals for making smaller donations. But when controlling for donation amount, paired subjects were significantly less happy with their donation amount than individual subjects—suggesting that paired subjects felt coerced to donate more than they would have otherwise. This leads to a dilemma: charities will do better by approaching groups of people (such as friends); however, this could result in increased donor discomfort, which would impact their future donations.

Organizational researchers have found a generally similar phenomenon among large corporations: executives and managers of large companies look to similar organizations in their industry or headquarters city to figure out the appropriate level of corporate charitable donations, and those that make smaller donations might be seen as stingy and suffer damage to their reputations.
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