Feeding the future: Increasing donations to reduce world hunger through karma and mental simulation

Abstract

World hunger is still a highly relevant social issue with 733 million people experiencing hunger worldwide in 2023 (WHO, 2024). Charitable organisations and programmes aiming to reduce hunger rely on advertisements utilising different types of framing and appeals to spur consumer donations, both monetary and non-monetary (e.g. food and time) (Costello & Malkoc, 2022; Homer, 2021; Silver & Small, 2024). However, it is still unclear which type of message framing can maximise consumer donations (Kulow & Kramer, 2016; Reed et al., 2007; Smith & Schwarz, 2012). This research investigates the effectiveness of karma versus religious appeals to increase donations to reduce hunger. There is extensive extant literature on donation behaviour resulting from the use of karma (Kulow & Kramer, 2016; Muralidharan, 2022; Sharma, 2021) and religious appeals (Bakar et al., 2013; Dotson & Hyatt, 2000; Zehra & Minton, 2020). However, only Muralidharan’s (2022) study examines these appeals together, but not in the donation context. Furthermore, this paper is the first to explore the effects of mental simulation, the creative envisioning of a future scenario (Thompson et al., 2009), and anticipated regret, the negative feeling that arises in relation to not executing a specific behaviour (Abraham & Sheeran, 2003), on the relationship between karma (versus religious) appeals on intention to donate to reduce hunger. This research adapted an experimental two-study approach. Both studies used a single factor, two level (appeal: karma vs. religious) between-subjects design, with slight tweaks to the advertisements for each study. 151 responses and 147 responses were collected for study 1 and 2 respectively. Belief in karma and religiosity was measured to eliminate these as alternative explanations for our prediction. Furthermore, we controlled for education level, as prior research suggests it influences donations (Converse et al., 2012). A mediation analysis using PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2018) with 5000 bootstrap resamples was conducted for both studies and study 2 also used a moderated mediation analysis. Study 1 demonstrated that a karma (vs. religious) appeal produced increased mental simulation and led to higher intentions to donate to reduce hunger. Study 2 confirmed the mediating effect of mental simulation on intention to donate to reduce hunger. However, this effect only emerged for respondents who felt low levels of anticipated regret. One possible reason is that messages using karma suggest a direct cause-and-effect relationship between one's actions and future consequences (Humphreys, 2005), which enables individuals to vividly envision the positive outcomes of donating; in this case, less starving people. Furthermore, those with low anticipated regret do not have a high emotional burden (as those with high anticipated regret), and consequently, full cognitive capability to envision a world without hunger and the impact their donation can have. In summary, the findings of this research indicate that the use of karma can enhance mental simulation, which in turn increases the intention to donate to reduce hunger. It also highlights the importance of minimising negative emotions like anticipated regret to boost the effectiveness of mental simulation in driving donations to reduce hunger.