Pity v. Pathos: The impact of moral appeals on charitable donations and engagement

There is widespread belief among the development policy community that campaigners face a trade off between seeking higher levels of public donation and increasing public engagement with international development issues. The triumph of the former at the expense of the latter has meant development appeals have often use shocking or negative imagery and language to appeal to the audience’s emotions of pity and guilt. While such appeals are seen to increase levels of donations, such emotional appeals are seen by many to lower public engagement with development issues and reduce support for development aid in the long term. More positive appeals based on notions of solidarity and equality, which appeal to emotions of pathos and empathy are seen as potentially promoting deeper engagement, individual efficacy, and long term support for development aid; they are seen as less effective than pity-based appeals at increasing public donations. In this article, we test these arguments using an embedded survey experiment (N= 1,200) drawing on YouGov’s online panel. Respondents are randomly assigned to one of four treatments. We assess whether these appeals impact respondents’ levels of donation, interest in volunteering, and levels of individual efficacy and which emotional responses mediate the above.