Why Information Fails To Encourage Costly Behavior

Transcription

1 Why Information Fails To Encourage Costly Behavior Christine L. Exley and Judd B. Kessler February 13, 2017 Abstract Individuals frequently avoid information on the benefits of privately costly but socially beneficial actions. Further, even when information is not avoided, individuals exploit uncertainty embedded in information in an excuse-driven manner. In this paper, we investigate whether we can eliminate excuse-driven responses to information by providing unavoidable information that is simple and free of any uncertainty. We find robust evidence to the contrary. Participants in an online experiment use irrelevant information and underweight positive information on the benefits of charitable giving as excuses not to give. The observed excuse-driven behavior persists even when participants are provided with processed information that highlights the net benefits of the charitable giving opportunity. The excuse-driven behavior comes at a cost, as some individuals engage in inefficient giving when an excuse is removed. These results ultimately cast doubt on the returns to using information to encourage costly behaviors when excuse-driven motives are relevant. Exley: clexley@hbs.edu, Harvard Business School; Kessler: judd.kessler@wharton.upenn.edu, The Wharton School

2 When given the opportunity to take a privately costly but socially beneficial action, such as privately providing public goods or donating to charity, individuals will go to great lengths to avoid taking the action. Previous work has shown that individuals will pay a monetary or inconvenience cost to avoid being asked to take such actions. 1 Standard theory suggests that the lengths need not be so great, as individuals could simply decline the asks. That individuals instead pay costs to avoid being asked highlights the existence of pressure arising from the ask itself. Such pressure might be necessary to encourage the private provision of public goods in settings when altruism (Becker, 1974) and warm glow (Andreoni, 1990) are not sufficient to encourage giving. 2 If the goal is to encourage individuals to take these socially beneficial actions, one approach is to eliminate opportunities to avoid the ask. However, even if they do not avoid the ask, individuals adopt self-serving responses to information when there is uncertainty about the payoffs (Haisley and Weber, 2010; Exley, 2015). 3 Another approach is therefore to make available information that eliminates any uncertainty about the payoffs and does not introduce alternative justifications. A limitation of this approach is that individuals often avoid such information taking advantage of what Dana, Weber and Kuang (2007) calls moral wiggle room and do not give. Literature documenting self-serving avoidance of information is vast (Larson and Capra, 2009; Bartling, Engl and Weber, 2014; Conrads and Irlenbusch, 2013; Feiler, 2014; Grossman, 2014; van der Weele, 2014; Grossman and van der Weele, 2016). 4 Eliminating excuses may thus require that individuals become fully informed in a manner that ensures no uncertainty or subjectivity remains in their giving decisions. 5 In examining such a setting via controlled experiments, this paper shows that even this comprehensive approach is insufficient to encourage giving. Among individuals who are fully informed about giving 1 See Dana, Cain and Dawes (2006); Broberg, Ellingsen and Johannesson (2007); Oberholzer-Gee and Eichenberger (2008); Lazear, Malmendier and Weber (2012); DellaVigna, List and Malmendier (2012); Kamdar et al. (2015); Trachtman et al. (2015); Andreoni, Rao and Trachtman (2016); Lin, Schaumberg and Reich (2016). More broadly, individuals often avoid moral tests (Miller and Monin, 2016). 2 In these settings, it may be ambiguous whether encouraging prosocial behavior is welfare enhancing, since it requires trading off disutility from a potential donor who might prefer not to be asked to give with the welfare benefits of the externalities associated with the gift. Similar trade-offs arise for the efficiency costs of taxation and the public goods they fund and for other nudges to encourage prosocial behaviors (Allcott and Kessler, 2016). 3 More broadly, one might think of uncertainty arising from subjectivity in determining which set of actions is fair, appropriate, or plausibly justified (Snyder et al., 1979; Babcock et al., 1995; Hsee, 1996; Konow, 2000; Shalvi et al., 2011; Shalvi, Eldar and Bereby-Meyer, 23; Gino and Ariely, 2012; Gino, Ayal and Ariely, 2013; Gneezy, Keenan and Gneezy, 2014; Di Tella et al., 2015; Pittarello et al., 2015; Danilov and Saccardo, 2016; Exley, 2016; Schwardman and van der Weele, 2016) or due to the existence of intermediaries or others who are involved in the decision (Hamman, Loewenstein and Weber, 2010; Linardi and McConnell, 2011; Coffman, 2011; Bartling and Fischbacher, 2012; Andreoni and Bernheim, 2009; Falk and Szech, 2013). For a more extensive discussion of the vast literature related to self-serving behavior, see survey papers such as Merritt, Effron and Monin (2010), Shalvi et al. (2015), Gino, Norton and Weber (2016) and Bénabou and Tirole (2016). 4 See also discussions of information avoidance in Cohen (2001), Zerubavel (2007), and Heffernan (2012). 5 Considering whether individuals develop excuses absent ambiguous or risky information, and absent the ability to avoid information or the ask, is related to the motivation in Exley and Petrie (2016), which documents how individuals may find their own excuses when given time to do so. 1

3 opportunities with simple and certain payoffs, we identify and provide empirical support for two novel, excuse-driven responses to information. First, we show that individuals use irrelevant payoff information, which does not affect the costs or benefits of a decision, as an excuse not to give. Second, we show that individuals underweight positive payoff information about higher benefits to a costly action. 6 Additional results show that excuse-driven behavior is even greater among the more selfish individuals. The only limit to excuse-driven behavior appears to arise from a desire for consistency among the less selfish individuals, which pushes them towards giving more when excuses are absent even when giving is inefficient. 7 Our data include a series of charitable giving decisions made by nearly twelve hundred Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. To identify excuse-driven behavior, we compare individuals responding to information absent self-serving motives and when self-serving motives are present. Participants in our control groups make binary decisions between: (i) bundles of donations going to Make- A-Wish Foundation state chapters and (ii) 150 cents going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation national chapter. To examine whether individuals responses differ when self-serving motives are active, participants in our treatment groups make binary decisions between: (i) the same bundles of donations going to state chapters and (ii) a normalized amount of money for themselves. To ensure individuals willingness to choose a bundle is not driven by the relative value of their second option, the normalization procedure occurs on the individual level such that participants are indifferent between the normalized amount of money for themselves and 150 cents for the national chapter. To the extent that we see differences in the decision to give bundles of donations to the state chapters between the control and treatment, we therefore attribute the differences to self-serving motives. We compare behavior between control and treatment in three different experimental conditions. Across the conditions, we vary whether participants are forced to learn information about the bundles of donations, are forced to learn about the bundles and have the information processed for them (i.e., have the sum of donations to the various state chapters in the bundle shown to them along with the individual donation amounts), or have the option to learn information about the bundles of donations but are not forced to do so. In our first condition where participants are forced to become informed, we find that participants behave very differently in the control and treatment. While participants in the control (whose outside option is donating 150 cents to the national chapter) mainly respond to the sum 6 These results are somewhat related to the more is less phenomenon reported on by Hsee (1998) and List (2002), which finds that individuals are less likely to purchase a bundle when it includes low quality products along with the set of higher quality products, essentially contradicting free disposal. In those setting, however, the customers are able to report their desired price and are not looking for excuses not to give. 7 This last result is corroborated by Lin, Zlatev and Miller (2016), which finds in a two-decision environment that subjects are more likely to make a donation decisionin response to a second request if they previously were asked to give in a less appealing context, which provided an excusenot to give that is not present in the second decision. We observe a similar effect in a dynamic environment (with forty-eight decisions) and find that this desire for consistency strengthens over time. 2

4 of donations to the state chapters, participants in the treatment (whose outside option is keeping money for themselves) behave much differently. First, participants in the treatment respond to irrelevant information as an excuse not to give: when a state chapter that receives 0 cents is added to a bundle, there is a large decrease in giving. For example, in the treatment, relative to a bundle with four state chapters in which all four state chapters each receive 51 cents, a bundle with five state chapters in which four state chapters each receive 51 cents but the fifth state chapter receives 0 cents attracts fewer donations. This finding persists even though subjects know that any state chapter not listed in a bundle does not receive any money, and most tellingly, is substantially muted in the control. Second, we find that participants in the treatment underweight positive information. When a state chapter that receives money is added to a bundle, there is a smaller increase in giving in the treatment than in the control. In our second condition where participants are forced to become informed and are provided with the sum of total donations to state chapters in each bundle, nearly identical responses to information occur. Ensuring the accurate processing of simple information does not mitigate excuse-driven responses. In our third condition where participants have the option to become informed, we find consistent with previous work that participants with self-serving motives (i.e., those in the treatment) are less likely to become informed and less likely to choose the bundles benefiting the state chapters than participants without self-serving motives (i.e., those in the control condition). Similar patterns of excuse-driven responses to information nonetheless persist; participants in the treatment who choose to learn information on the donations associated with a bundle also use irrelevant information and underweight positive information as excuses not to give. Across all conditions, we explore the predictors and limits of excuse-driven responses. In line with prior literature (Karlan and Wood, 2014; Exley, 2015, 2016; Exley and Petrie, 2016), less selfish participants are significantly less excuse-driven in their responses to information. These results hold when measuring participants selfishness both via their normalized values of how much money they are willing to give up for the Make-A-Wish Foundation national chapter to receive 150 cents and via their self-reported prior volunteer activity. Less selfish participants also appear to become increasingly constrained in their decisions over time, consistent with a desire to avoid cognitive dissonance that may arise from perpetually altering their decision rules in a self-serving manner. As a result, less selfish participants in treatment engage in more inefficient giving choosing to give up money for a bundle with a sum of donations to state chapters that is less than what is implied by their normalized values. The extent of excuse-driven responses to information in our study highlights a clear challenge to effectively using information to encourage the undertaking of costly actions. Our results also help to explain why providing decision makers with information does not always influence behavior. It is well documented that individuals often take the action that most benefits themselves 3

5 today to the severe detriment of their future selves despite overwhelming and objective information about this tradeoff: they avoid taking their doctor-prescribed medication, eating healthfully, going to the gym, investing in human capital, or saving for retirement. These choices result in poor health, education, and financial outcomes, perhaps because individuals do not process new information even if it is simple, unavoidable, unambiguous, and free of any risk in the intended manner. Individuals may instead use the information in a self-serving way to avoid incurring immediate costs. 8 Such excuse-driven processing of information may allow individuals to maintain positive views about their health or financial decision-making even while failing to take the corresponding actions. 9 Dynamic information interventions that can exploit a desire for consistency may instead be warranted. The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 1 describes the experimental design. Section 2 describes the experimental results. Section 3 concludes. 1 Design The experiment has a 2 X 3 design, where each participant is randomly assigned to either the treatment or control and subjects make decisions in one of three conditions: the info-amounts condition, the info-amounts-sum condition, or the info-choice condition. All participants make forty-eight binary decisions between various bundles that benefit Make-A-Wish Foundation state chapters and an outside option. 10 The outside option in the control involves the national chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation receiving 150 cents as a donation. The outside option in the treatment involves participants receiving X cents for themselves. A normalization procedure elicits X on the participant-level such that participants are indifferent between 150 cents for the national chapter and X cents for themselves. Before making each binary decision, participants learn information about the relevant bundle. In the info-amounts condition, participants always learn exactly how much money is given to each state chapter. For instance, imagine a participant has an opportunity to choose the bundle shown in Figure 1. Participants can immediately read that this bundle involves 54 cents being given to the Louisiana state chapter. The donation amount for the first selected state chapter is always revealed by default. Participants then learn the donation amounts for the remaining state chapters by clicking on each header. Participants must click on all headers to submit their decisions. As shown in Appendix Figure A.1, clicking on the second header for this bundle would reveal that it involves no donation for the Washington state chapter. By contrast, as Appendix 8 See related (non-behavioral) work arguing that despite engaging in Bayesian updating, individuals may not be convinced by information simply because they are not marginal given the information being provided (Coffman, Featherstone and Kessler, 2017) 9 Such a pattern may help to explain how naive hyperbolic discounters remain naive even when they perpetually fail to follow through on their actions. 10 The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that organizes and funds wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions. 4

6 Figures A.1 - A.3, clicking on the third and fourth headers would reveal that these options involve 54 cents being given to the North Carolina and to the Georgia state chapters, respectively. This bundle would be referred to as a 3/4-bundle because, after participants complete the required clicking on each header, they would know that 3 out of the 4 selected state chapters receive a donation. Participants are also informed that any non-selected state chapter receives no donation. More generally, an i/j-bundle highlights that, out of j selected state chapters, i would receive a donation (and so j i would not receive a donation). Since state chapters not in the bundle are known not to receive a donation, information on the amount of money being donated to charity via an i/j-bundle is fully captured by i, making j i irrelevant. Figure 1: Example of Initially Revealed Information on a 3/4 Bundle In the info-amounts-sum condition, participants are also required to learn exactly how much money is given to each selected state chapter by clicking on the corresponding headers exactly as in the info-amounts condition. Participants in either the info-amounts condition or the infoamounts-sum condition can therefore determine the total charitable benefit from a bundle by adding up how much money is given to each selected state chapter. To guard against inaccurate processing i.e., choosing not to calculate or failing to calculate the total charitable benefit the info-amounts-sum condition additionally informs participants of the total donation amount given to selected state chapters in each bundle. For instance, if participants face the bundle shown in Figure 1, the question appearing above this bundle would vary depending on the information condition as shown in Figure 2. In the info-choice condition, participants are not required to learn exactly how much money is given to each selected state chapter. While the donation amount given to the first state chapter is still revealed by default, participants can choose whether to click to learn the donation amounts being given to the remaining state chapters in a bundle. Choosing not to learn the donation 5

7 Figure 2: Example of question faced by participants in the control according to their information condition (a) Info-amounts condition (b) Info-amounts-sum condition amounts being given to the remaining state chapters ensures ignorance about the total charitable benefit from a bundle since, as in the info-amounts condition, participants can only learn this information by adding together the donation amounts for each selected state chapter. Section 1.1 explains the normalization procedure, Section 1.2 details the parameters involved in the forty-eight binary decisions, and Section 1.3 describes the implementation procedure. Recall that each participant is randomly assigned to the treatment or control and to one of the three information conditions. 1.1 Normalizing Outside Options Participants complete a normalization price list that elicits an X such that they are indifferent between 150 cents for the national chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation and X cents for themselves. On each row of a thirty-one row price list, participants must decide between two payment options. The first payment option involves 150 cents being given to the national chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation. The second payment option involves 5 (r 1) cents being given to the participants on the r th row. If a participant switches from choosing the first payment option on the r th to the second payment option on the (r + 1) th row, then that participant is indifferent between 150 cents for the national chapter and X cents for themselves, where 5 (r 1) X 5 r. We estimate a participant s X value as the lower bound of this indifference range (X = 5 (r 1) cents) so that participants value their outside option in the control as much, if not more than, their outside option in the treatment. There are a few cases where we determine participants X values differently. If participants switch on the first row so that 0 X 5 cents, we instead assume the upper bound of their indifference range so that X = 5 cents. If participants always choose the option of money for themselves, we assume X = 5 cents. If participants always choose the first option of 150 cents for the national chapter, we assume X = 150 cents. 6

8 1.2 Parameters for the bundles After X values are determined from the completion of the normalization price list, participants make a series of forty-eight binary decisions. Each decision involves choosing between a bundle of donations to Make-A-Wish Foundation state chapters and their outside option. While the outside option remains constant across these decisions equal to 150 cents for the national chapter in the control and X cents for the participants in the treatment the specific bundle varies across the decisions. Each bundle is constructed by randomly selecting 4 or 5 Make-A-Wish Foundation state chapters. 11 From the selected chapters, a subset receives a donation d cents for some randomly selected d {51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59} for all but a few bundles described later. While d is held constant within a bundle, d varies across bundles. Any selected state chapters not in that subset plus any non-selected state chapters do not receive any donation. Table 1 describes the thirty-six main bundles in this study. To begin, there are twelve i/4- bundles, or bundles that involve i out of 4 selected state chapters receiving a donation. Each column within the top panel of Table 1 describes one of these twelve bundles by noting whether the first, second, third and/or fourth state chapter receives a donation of d cents. From the twelve i/4-bundles, an additional twelve i/5-bundles are constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does not receive a donation. Comparing individuals willingness to choose i/4-bundles to corresponding i/5-bundles allows us to examine the impact of irrelevant payment information, or information that does not change the benefit to state chapters. From the twelve i/4-bundles, an additional twelve (i+1)/5-bundles are constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives a donation of d cents. Comparing individuals willingness to choose i/4-bundles to corresponding (i+1)/5-bundles allows us to examine the impact of positive information, or information that conveys a higher benefit to state chapters. 12 The thirty-six main bundles described in Table 1 involve twenty-four bundles with five selected state chapters and twelve bundles with four selected state chapters. To vary whether participants first make decisions over bundles with four selected state chapters or five selected state chapters, we construct an additional twelve bundles with four state chapters, which are described in Table 2. Decisions involving these additional bundles are excluded from our main analysis but form the basis of an investigation on the limits of excuse-driven behavior, as detailed in Section Some states have several regional Make-A-Wish Foundation state chapters, while some states share a chapter. Our IRB approval was also limited to only a subset of Make-A-Wish Foundation chapters. Given these constraints, we randomly drew from a list of 28 states that we matched with corresponding Make-A-Wish Foundation chapters. This list included Alaska, California. Colorado. Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana. Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. 12 While we can also examine the impact of positive information by looking at the variation in i in i/4-bundles, comparing i/4-bundles to (i+1)/5-bundles versus comparing i/4-bundles to i/5-bundles allows for a well-controlled comparison of positive information to irrelevant information. 7

9 Table 1: Donation amounts given to each state chapter in main bundles i = 4 i = 3 i = 2 i/4-bundles 1st state chapter d d d d 0 d d d 0 d d 0 2nd state chapter d d d d d 0 d d 0 0 d d 3rd state chapter d d d d d d 0 d d 0 0 d 4th state chapter d d d d d d d 0 d d 0 0 i/5-bundles 1st-4th state chapters same as in i/4-bundles 5th state chapter (i+1)/5-bundles 1st-4th state chapters same as in i/4-bundles 5th state chapter d d d d d d d d d d d d Underlying bundle type: Each column within the top, middle or bottom panel indicates how much each state chapter receives for a given bundle. In the i/5-bundles and (i+1)/5-bundles the first four state chapters receive the same amounts an in the corresponding i/4-bundle. 0 indicates that the corresponding state chapter does not receive a donation, and d indicates that the corresponding state chapter receives d cents where d is randomly selected on the participant-bundle level such that d {51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59}. Table 2: Donation amounts given to each state chapter in additional bundles i = 4d L i = 3d L i = 1 i/4-bundles 1st state chapter d L d L d L d L 0 d L d L d L d nd state chapter d L d L d L d L d L 0 d L d L 0 d 0 0 3rd state chapter d L d L d L d L d L d L 0 d L 0 0 d 0 4th state chapter d L d L d L d L d L d L d L d Underlying bundle type: Each column indicates how much each state chapter receives for a given bundle. 0 indicates that the corresponding state chapter does not receive a donation, d L indicates that the corresponding state chapter receives d L cents where d L is randomly selected on the participant-bundle level such that d L {30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38}, and d indicates that the corresponding state chapter receives d cents where d is randomly selected on the participant-bundle level such that d {51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59}. 8

10 1.3 Implementation Details From October 10-13, 2016, we advertised a 25-minute academic study on Amazon Mechanical Turk. From a recruited 1,200 participants, four participants failed to complete the study resulting in a sample of 1,196. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of six versions of our study resulting from our {treatment, control} X {info-amounts condition, info-amounts-sum condition, info-choice condition} design. Each participant received $4 for completing the study. One of their randomly selected decisions was also implemented for payments and thus resulted in additional payments for themselves or a donation to corresponding Make-A-Wish Foundation chapter(s). 13 Before participants complete the normalization price list or the subsequent forty-eight binary decisions, they consent to participate in the study, learn about the payment procedure, and must correctly answer several comprehension questions. After participants complete the normalization price list, the order in which they make their forty-eight binary decisions varies. Half of the participants are randomly selected to face twentyfour decisions involving bundles with four selected state chapters and then twenty-four decisions involving bundles with five selected state chapters. The other half of participants face twenty-four decisions involving bundles with five selected state chapters and then face twenty-four decisions involving bundles with four selected state chapters. Within the block of decisions involving four or five selected state chapters, the order in which participants face decisions with particular bundles also randomly varies on the participant-level. After all decisions are made, participants complete a short follow-up survey that gathers information on their demographics and participation in this study. 51% of participants are female, the median age is 33 years old, and the median educational attainment is an Associate s Degree. There are not significant differences in the observable characteristics across treatment and control. The results from these participants decisions are discussed in the next section. 2 Results Decisions from the normalization price list imply a range for participant s X values such that they are indifferent between 150 cents for the national chapter and X cents for themselves. Figure 3 shows the distribution of X values, assuming the lower bound of the implied indifference range, for the participants in this study. Figure 3 and the remainder of this analysis, however, exclude 17% of the most selfish participants who have X values that may be equal to 0 cents This could involve one of the 31 rows in the normalization price list, or one of the subsequent forty-eight binary decisions. 14 In particular, in the normalization price list, 3% of participants always choose money for themselves over 150 cents for the national chapter and 14% of participants choose 5 or more cents for themselves over 150 cents for the national chapter. The lower bound of these participants X values is therefore 0 cents. While all other participants have an estimated X value assuming the lower bound of their indifference range, these participants are assumed to have an X = 5 cents for the purpose of the experiment. 9

11 Since evidence in support of excuse-driven responses to information is strongest among the more selfish individuals in our study, we view this as the most conservative approach. It is nonetheless worth noting that our results are robust to the inclusion of these participants. Figure 3: Distribution of Normalized X values Percent Lower bound of maximum amount willing to forgo (X) for national chapter to receive 150 cents 2.1 Results from when information acquisition is required Before deciding between a bundle and their outside option, participants in the info-amounts condition always learn exactly how much money, z j, is given to each of the j selected state chapters in a bundle. In an i/j-bundle, participants learn that each of the i selected state chapters receive z = d cents for some d {51,..., 59} and that each of the j i selected state chapters receive z = 0 cents. They also know that all non-selected state chapters do not receive a donation. To determine the total donation amount (D) from an i/j-bundle, participants may therefore add together the z j amounts for all j selected state chapters (i.e., calculate D = j z j), or they could count the number of state chapters receiving a donation and multiply it by the constant non-zero donation amount (i.e., calculate D = i d). In the info-amounts-sum condition, participants are directly informed of the total donation amount D from each bundle. That is, the only difference relative to the info-amounts condition is that participants know D even if they make no calculations. Any moral wiggle room or flexibility that may otherwise arise from avoiding such calculations is not relevant in the info-amounts-sum condition. As shown in Appendix Figures A.4 and A.5, the patterns of excuse-driven responses to information in these two conditions are nonetheless remarkably similar. Appendix Table A.1 10

12 indeed confirms that there are no statistically significant differences in willingness to choose bundles across these two conditions. As such, we will jointly consider the responses to information in the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition. Beginning with the control, recall that participants face binary decisions between a bundle and their outside option of 150 cents for the national chapter. The total donation amount D in a bundle is higher than 150 cents whenever three or more selected state chapters receive a donation of d cents, since d is between 51 and 59 cents. Panel A of Figure 4 shows participants decisions in the control appear to fall in line with a corresponding decisions rule: whenever three or more selected state chapters receive a donation, approximately 80% of participants in the control choose the bundle over their outside option of 150 cents for the national chapter. If instead only two selected state chapters receive a donation, less than 20% of participants choose the bundle. Note that the results are shown separately for the twelve i/4-bundles, twelve i/5-bundles that are constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does not receive a donation to the i/4-bundles, and the (i+1)/5-bundles that are constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives a donation the to the i/4-bundles. Also, note that the order in the twelve bundles for each of these categories presented aligns with their underlying bundle type previously depicted in Table 1. Panel B of Figure 4 shows participants decisions in the treatment are more nuanced. Participants in the treatment do not simply favor the bundles if at least three state chapters receive a donation. Consistent with excuse-driven responses, participants instead appear to use irrelevant information (they are less likely to choose i/5-bundles than i/4-bundles) and to underweight positive information (they do not favor (i+1)/5-bundles over i/4-bundles to the same degree). To more precisely consider the diverging responses to information across the treatment and control, we examine regression results from the linear probability model shown in Equation 1: P(choose bundle) = β 0 + β 1 treat + β 2 ( + 0) + β 3 ( + 1) (1) + β 4 treat ( + 0) + β 5 treat ( + 1) + 12 β k b k + ɛ where the variables are defined as: treat indicator for treatment, ( + 0) indicator for bundle with additional no donation - i.e., i/5-bundle, ( + 1) indicator for bundle with additional donation - i.e., (i+1)/5-bundle, and b k indicator for bundle type k as described in Table 1. Table 3 shows the corresponding regression results. The first column examines the results when considering all of the bundles i.e., the i/4-bundles, i/5-bundles, and (i+1)/5-bundles. 11

13 Figure 4: In the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition, fraction choosing to give via bundles (a) Control (b) Treatment Fraction choosing bundles Fraction choosing bundles (i+1)/5-bundles + 5/5 4/5 3/5 i/4-bundles 4/4 3/4 2/4 i/5-bundles x 4/5 3/5 2/5 Description of bundles (i+1)/5-bundles + 5/5 4/5 3/5 i/4-bundles 4/4 3/4 2/4 i/5-bundles x 4/5 3/5 2/5 Description of bundles i/4-bundles; x i/5-bundles constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives no donation to the i/4-bundles; and + (i+1)/5-bundles constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives a donation to the i/4-bundles. Within each of these labeled categories, the order of the corresponding twelve bundles aligns with the underlying bundle type (ranges from 1-12) previously depicted in Table 1. Data include the 648 participants with accurately estimated X values from the info-amounts and info-amounts-sum conditions for a total of 23,328 observations. The coefficient on treat shows that participants in the treatment are thirteen percentage points less likely than those in the control to choose an i/4-bundle over their outside option. This finding arises despite the fact that the normalization price implies that participants in the control should be weakly more likely to choose their outside option, since participants weakly prefer 150 cents for the national chapter (the outside option in the control) over X cents for themselves (the outside option in the treatment). The emergence of the opposite pattern is consistent with underlying excuse-driven behavior. For instance, participants in the treatment may overweight the extent to which they dislike selected state chapters as an excuse not to give, and such overweighting may have been more difficult when faced with the opportunity to give to the national chapter in the normalization price list. Alternatively, participants in the treatment may accumulate moral credits from their giving decisions in the normalization price list and subsequently feel that they can behave more selfishly when faced with the opportunity to give via bundles in the treatment (Merritt, Effron and Monin, 2010). The potential for such ordering effects, however, cannot explain differential responses to irrelevant and positive information across the treatment 12

14 and control, the order which is randomly determined. In addition, as discussed in Section 2.3, we do not observe significant ordering effects across the forty-eight decisions involving bundles. The coefficient on ( + 0) shows how participants respond to irrelevant information that conveys no change in the amount of money given to state chapters. Participants are four percentage points less likely to choose an i/5-bundle than the corresponding i/4-bundle. This significant, albeit quantitatively small, finding may reflect adverse framing or signaling effects that arise from an addition of the fifth selected state chapter that receives no donation. 15 The observed negative response is more than twice as large among participants in the treatment than control. The coefficient on treat*( + 0) shows that participants in the treatment are an additional five percentage point less likely to choose a bundle when a fifth state chapter that is selected and does not receive a donation. As shown in the second versus third column of Table 3, this finding is driven by bundles constructed from underlying 3/4-bundles or 4/4-bundles, bundles where the total donation amount D exceeds 150 cents even if a fifth state chapter is not selected to receive a donation. The more negative responses to the irrelevant payment information in the treatment versus control is consistent with excuse-driven responses. Participants in the treatment appear to negatively view irrelevant payment information on a selected fifth state chapter precisely in the cases where this information should be most clearly irrelevant i.e., when the total donation amount D exceeds 150 cents regardless of the donation amount given to a selected fifth state chapter. In particular, participants in the treatment may overweight the extent to which they think irrelevant information conveys a poorer quality giving opportunity or the extent to which they dislike the more salient inequity. More generally, participants may latch onto the irrelevant information itself, perhaps by forming a narrow bracket around the fifth selected state chapter that does not receive a donation, as an excuse to more frequently choose their outside option of X cents for themselves. The coefficient on ( + 1) shows that individuals respond favorably to positive information that conveys a higher benefit to state chapters. Participants are twenty percentage points more likely to choose an (i+1)/5-bundle than the corresponding i/4-bundle. However, the coefficient on treat*( + 1) shows that this increased willingness to choose a bundle is cut in half when selfserving motives are relevant. Compared to the control, participants in the treatment are eleven percentage points less likely to choose a bundle when a fifth state chapter is selected and receives a donation. As shown in the third versus second column of Table 3, this finding is driven by bundles that are constructed from underlying 2/4-bundles, bundles where the total donation amount D only exceeds 150 cents if a fifth state chapter is selected to receive a donation. The less positive responses to the positive payment information in the treatment versus control 15 For instance, individuals may assume the giving opportunity is of worse quality given the presence of irrelevant information, or the inequity caused by bundles may be more salient since only some subset of state chapters receive a donation. 13

15 is consistent with excuse-driven responses. Participants in the treatment appear to underweight positive payment information on a selected fifth state chapter precisely in the cases where this information should be most influential i.e., when it would convey that the total donation amount D now exceeds 150 cents. Table 3: In the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition, regression results from linear probability models of the likelihood to choose a bundle Given underlying i/4-bundle with: i = 2, 3, 4 i = 3, 4 i = 2 treat (0.02) (0.03) (0.03) ( + 0) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) ( + 1) (0.01) (0.01) (0.03) treat*( + 0) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) treat*( + 1) (0.02) (0.02) (0.03) Constant (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) Observations Bundle FEs yes yes yes p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < Standard errors are clustered at the participant-level and shown in parentheses. The results are from a linear probability model of likelihood to choose a bundle. treat is an indicator for participants in the treatment. ( + 0) is an indicator for an i/5-bundle that is constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does not receive a donation to the underlying i/4-bundles. ( + 1) is an indicator for an (i+1)/5-bundle that is constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does receive a donation to the underlying i/4-bundles. Bundle FEs include fixed effects for the underlying bundle type as described in Table 1. Data are from the decisions of participants with accurately estimated X values in the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition. 2.2 Info Choice Condition Participants in the control group of the info-choice condition choose to learn some information 66% of the time. That is, in addition to viewing the donation amount to the first state chapter that is revealed by default, they click to learn the donation amount given to the second, third, fourth, and/or fifth state chapter 66% of the time. Consistent with motivated information acquisition, participants in the treatment group of the info-choice condition are twenty percentage points less likely to learn some information, as they only click to learn the donation amount given to the second, third, fourth, and/or fifth state chapter 47% of time. In both the control and treatment, however, participants who choose to learn some information choose to learn all of the donation amounts to state chapters in a bundle approximately three-quarters of the time. Aside from participants in the treatment revealing information less often than those in the control, 14

16 Appendix Figure A.6 and Appendix Table A.2 show that there are no significant differences in information acquisition choices across the different types of bundles. There is little room for participants to respond to different types of information when they choose to avoid said information. Appendix Figures A.7 and A.8 indeed confirm that when participants do not fully reveal information on donation amounts, they are generally unresponsive to the donation amounts in bundles. The only robust and significant pattern that emerges is among individuals who choose not to reveal any donation amount information and thus only learn the donation amount for the first state chapter. These participants are less likely to choose a bundle if the first state chapter receives no donation (i.e., for 5 th, 9 th, or 12 th bundle type defined in Table 1). 16 By contrast, when participants choose to fully reveal information on bundles, they may respond to the different types of information. In fact, Figure 5 shows that the self-selected group of participants who choose to fully reveal information appear to respond to information in a remarkably similar manner to the non-selected group of participants who are required to fully reveal information in the previous info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition. In the control group of the info-choice condition, these participants choose a bundle as long the total donation amount D exceeds 150, which occurs whenever at least three state chapters receive a donation. In the treatment group of the info-choice condition, these participants appear to use irrelevant information and underweight positive information as excuses not to give. That is, excuse-driven responses to information persist among these participants, even though they could have instead avoided information as an excuse not to give. While participants in the treatment respond to information in an excuse-driven manner when they choose to fully reveal the information on the donation amounts in a bundle, it may still follow that the overall level of excuse-driven responses to information is muted in the info-choice condition since participants in the treatment are more likely to avoid information and thus not be able to respondto it. Table 4 reports regression results from the linear probability model in Equation 1 among participants in the info-choice condition and finds that the magnitude and significance of the coefficients are very similar to those observed in the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition where information on the donation amounts could not be avoided. In addition to participants being less likely to choose the bundles as a level effect in the treatment (i.e., see the coefficient on treat), participants in the treatment respond more negatively to irrelevant information (i.e., see the coefficient on treat*( + 0)) and less positively to positive information (i.e., see the coefficient on treat*( + 1)). In line with the robustness of excuse-driven responses to information in the info-choice condition, Appendix Table A.3 confirms the statistical significance of these excuse-driven responses 16 When participants in the treatment choose not to reveal any information on a bundle, they are ten percentage points less likely to choose the bundle if the first state chapter receives no donation (p < 0.01). 15

17 when pooling across all information conditions. Moreover, only one differential pattern emerges across the treatment conditions. When the underlying i/4-bundle contains at least three donations and thus D > 150 cents, participants choose the bundle less often in the info-choice condition. When the underlying i/4-bundle contains only two donations and thus D < 150 cents, participants choose the bundle more often in the info-choice condition. Both of these results are consistent with participants in the info-choice condition responding less to the total donation amount D in a bundle, presumably in part due to the avoidance of information. Interestingly though, the estimated coefficients on treat*info-choice condition are never statistically significant despite the significantly higher rates of information avoidance in the treatment. This result suggests that once we control for the excuse-driven behavior observed in the info-amounts condition and info-amounts-sum condition, there is no additional negative effect on giving associated with being able to avoid information. Figure 5: In the info-choice condition when information is fully revealed, fraction choosing to give via bundles Fraction choosing bundles Fraction choosing bundles (i+1)/5-bundles + 5/5 4/5 3/5 i/4-bundles 4/4 3/4 2/4 i/5-bundles x 4/5 3/5 2/5 Description of bundles (a) Control (i+1)/5-bundles + 5/5 4/5 3/5 i/4-bundles 4/4 3/4 2/4 i/5-bundles x 4/5 3/5 2/5 Description of bundles (b) Treatment i/4-bundles; x i/5-bundles constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives no donation to the i/4-bundles; and + (i+1)/5-bundles constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that receives a donation to the i/4-bundles. Within each of these labeled categories, the order of the corresponding twelve bundles aligns with the underlying bundle type (ranges from 1-12) previously depicted in Table 1. Data include the 250 participants with accurately estimated X values from the info-choice condition for a total of 5,261 observations resulting from decisions where they chose to fully reveal information on the i/(i+j)-bundle. 16

18 Table 4: In the info-choice condition, regression results from linear probability models of the likelihood to choose a bundle Given underlying i/4-bundle with: i = 2, 3, 4 i = 3, 4 i = 2 treat (0.04) (0.05) (0.04) ( + 0) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) ( + 1) (0.02) (0.02) (0.04) treat*( + 0) (0.02) (0.02) (0.03) treat*( + 1) (0.02) (0.02) (0.05) Constant (0.03) (0.03) (0.02) Observations Bundle FEs yes yes yes p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < Standard errors are clustered at the participant-level and shown in parentheses. The results are from a linear probability model of likelihood to choose a bundle. treat is an indicator for participants in the treatment. ( + 0) is an indicator for an i/5-bundle that is constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does not receive a donation to the underlying i/4-bundles. ( + 1) is an indicator for an (i+1)/5-bundle that is constructed by adding a fifth state chapter that does receive a donation to the underlying i/4-bundles.bundle FEs include fixed effects for the underlying bundle type as described in Table 1. Data are from the decisions of participants with accurately estimated X values in the info-choice condition. 2.3 Robustness of Results To consider the robustness of excuse-driven responses to information, and in subsequent sections the predictors and limits of excuse-driven responses, it is useful to introduce a simplified specification. In particular, an alternative way to examine whether individuals respond to information in a self-serving manner is to examine whether individuals choose bundles where D 150 cents. The donation amounts in such bundles are greater than their outside option of 150 cents going to the national chapter in the control, and according to the normalization procedure, greater than their outside option of X cents for themselves in the treatment. We consider this alternative specification via the linear probability model in Equation 2: P(choose bundle) = β 0 + β 1 treat + β 2 (D 150) + β 3 treat (D 150) + 12 β k b k + ɛ (2) 17

19 where the variables are defined as: treat indicator for treatment, (D 150) indicator for bundle with at least three donations, and b k indicator for bundle type k as described in Table 1. Looking at treat*(d 150) implicitly combines the excuse-driven effects we documented in the previous sections, since the use of irrelevant information as an excuse not to give arose in the treatment when D 150 and the underweighting of positive information in the treatment arose when the extra donation led to D 150. Consequently, to the extent that these effects are active, treat*(d 150) should be negative and significant. The first column of Table 5 presents the regression results from Equation 2 when pooling across all three information conditions. 17 The positive coefficient on treat indicates that, when less than 150 cents is given to state chapters from a bundle, participants choose the bundle an average of seven percentage points more often in the treatment than control. This may be indicative of the limits of excuse-driven behavior; if excuses push individuals away from considering the overall benefits of the giving opportunity, they may also cause individuals to give too much in cases where the benefits are low. While this possibility is considered in more detail in Section 2.5, the remaining coefficient estimates show that robust evidence for overall excuse-driven behavior nonetheless remains. The coefficient on (D 150) shows that participants are an average of forty-nine percentage points more likely to choose a bundle when at least 150 cents is given to state chapters. The coefficient on treat*(d 150) shows that this positive response is substantially lower by thirty percentage points in the treatment when excuse-driven motives are relevant. The second, third, and fourth columns of Table 5 show that results are additionally robust to only including participants who self-report in the follow-up survey that they made careful decisions, made non-random decisions, and understood their decisions, respectively. The fifth column of Table 5 considers a more nuanced sample. To begin, note that, across all thirty-six decisions involving the main bundles, bundles are always chosen by 3% of participants in the control and 8% of participants in the treatment. By contrast, the outside option is always chosen by 7% of participants in the control and 22% of participants in the treatment. lack of variation may reflect factors such as relative indifference between the binary choices or different valuations of money given to state chapters versus national chapters. 18 The increase in 17 Appendix Table A.4 confirms that the results are robust when separately considering each information condition. As in Appendix Table A.3, there is again some evidence for participants in the info-choice condition choosing bundles more often when the charitable benefits are low but less often when the charitable benefits are high. There is marginal evidence of participants in the info-sum-amounts condition being more likely to have excuse-driven responses to net positive information. 18 In the treatment condition, the lack of variation may also reflect individuals deciding to always give or never give, regardless of the opportunities to do so. This heuristic may lead to the higher rate of participants always This 18

20 how often participants always choose their outside option in the treatment is also consistent with participants overweighting their dislike of state chapters as an excuse never to give. In any case, the fifth column of Table 5 documents that our results are robust to only considering decisions from participants who sometimes choose the bundle and other times choose the outside option across their thirty-six decisions. The sixth column of Table 5 documents the robustness of our results to the inclusion of participants who, up to this point, have been excluded in our analyses because their estimated X values resulted from censored indifference ranges. Table 5: Robustness of regression results from linear probability models of the likelihood to choose a bundle Main Careful Non-Random Understood Variation No X Sample Decisions Decisions Decisions in Decisions Restrictions (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) treat (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (D 150) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) treat*(d 150) (0.03) (0.03) (0.03) (0.03) (0.03) (0.02) Constant (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) Observations Bundle FEs yes yes yes yes yes yes p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < Standard errors are clustered at the participant-level and shown in parentheses. The results are from a linear probability model of likelihood to choose a bundle. treat is an indicator for participants in the treatment. (D 150) is an indicator for a bundle having a total donation amount of at least 150 cents. Bundle FEs include fixed effects for the underlying bundle type as described in Table 1. Data in the first column are from the decisions of participants with accurately estimated X values in any of the information conditions. Relative to the first column, data in the second - fourth columns additionally restrict to participants who self-report that they agree or strongly agree that they made careful decisions, made non-random decision, and understood their decisions, respectively. Relative to the first column, data in the fifth column additionally restricts to participants who choose the bundle at least once and their outside option at least once across the thirty-six decisions. Relative to the first column, data in the sixth column additionally includes participants without accurately estimated X values i.e., includes all participants in the study. Appendix Table A.5 further shows that the results are robust to only considering participants first set of decisions, participants second set of decisions, participants who first make decisions involving bundles with four selected state chapters, or participants who first make decisions involving bundles with five selected state chapters. When fully exploiting the random ordering of the thirty-six main bundles, only one significant patterns emerges. Over time, participants are giving in the treatment (8%) than the control (3%), where all decisions involve giving and the decision is to which recipients. 19

21 less likely to choose bundles with low net charitable benefits and more likely to choose bundles with high net charitable benefits. (We will later show that this effect is driven by participants in the control.) 2.4 Predictors of Excuse-Driven Behavior Recall that the normalization price list determines participant-level X values such that participants are indifferent between X cents for themselves and 150 cents for the national chapter. In defining a participant s self-to-charity-exchange rate as r = 150, participants require that X money for themselves is multiplied by r before they are willing to instead have that money given to the national chapter. While r = 1 implies participants are indifferent between money for themselves and money for the charity, r > 1 implies participants value money for themselves more than they value money for the national chapter. Given our normalization price list, the maximum r is 30. Exley (2015) and Exley (2016), which use a similar normalization procedure, find that participants who are more selfish as indicated by higher self-to-charity exchange rates are more likely to have excuse-driven responses to risk in charity payoffs and to lower charity performance metrics. Table 6 presents results from regressions that allow us to test for heterogeneous excuse-driven behavior in our setting. While the first column in Table 6 restricts the data to the less selfish participants with below median or median self-to-charity exchange rates (i.e., r 2.14), the second column in Table 6 restricts the data to the more selfish participants with above median self-to-charity exchange rates. The coefficient on treat*(d 150) in the first column shows that the less selfish participants in the treatment are twenty-one percentage points less likely to choose bundles where state chapters receive at least 150 cents. The coefficient on treat*(d 150) in the second column shows that the more selfish participants in the treatment are thirty-nine percentage points less likely to choose bundles where state chapters receive at least 150 cents. That is, the more selfish participants in the treatment appear to undervalue the total donation amounts by nearly twice as much as the less selfish participants. By interacting the main effects with the demeaned self-to-charity exchange rates, (r r), the third column indeed confirms that more selfish participants are significantly more likely to respond in an excuse-driven manner to information conveying 150 cents or more being given to state chapters. Appendix Table A.6 finds similar results when instead using participants self-reported volunteer hours in the past year as their baseline measure of selfishness. Appendix Table A.7 reports no significant gender effects. 20

22 Table 6: Examining heterogeneity in excuse-driven behavior: Regression results from linear probability models of the likelihood to choose the a bundle Less Selfish More Selfish All Participants Participants Participants (1) (2) (3) treat (0.03) (0.03) (0.02) (D 150) (0.03) (0.03) (0.02) treat*(d 150) (0.04) (0.04) (0.03) (r r) (0.00) treat*(r r) 0.00 (0.00) (D 150)*(r r) 0.00 (0.00) treat*(d 150)*(r r) (0.00) Constant (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) Observations Bundle FEs yes yes yes p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < Standard errors are clustered at the participant-level and shown in parentheses. The results are from a linear probability model of likelihood to choose a bundle. treat is an indicator for participants in the treatment. (D 150) is an indicator for a bundle having a total donation amount of at least 150 cents. (r r) is a participant s demeaned self-to-charity exchange rate, where r = 150 X given participants are indifferent between X cents for themselves and 150 cents for the national chapter. Bundle FEs include fixed effects for the underlying bundle type as described in Table 1. Data in all of the columns are from the decisions of participants with accurately estimated X values in any of the information conditions. Data in the first column versus second column are additionally restricted to the less selfish participants (i.e., X 70, or r = 150 X 2.14) versus the remaining more selfish participants. 21

23 2.5 Limits to Excuse-Driven Behavior Recall that regression results from Equation 2 highlight that, when D < 150 cents, participants in the treatment choose the bundle more often than participants in the control. As previously mentioned, this may be indicative of the limits or constraints that arise from excusedriven behavior. For example, subjects may use specific details of the bundles (e.g., which state chapters are present or how many state chapters get 0 cents) as an excuse not to give. If such excuses cause participants in the treatment not to pay attention to the overall benefits of the giving opportunity, they may inadvertently choose bundles with low total donation amounts. Alternatively, cognitive dissonance may arise from sometimes considering the overall benefits of the giving opportunity and other times not considering the overall benefits. To further investigate this possibility, we will now consider the twelve additional bundles described in Table 2 since they involve relatively low total donation amounts. In particular, each of the additional bundles involves four selected state chapters, among which (i) only one state chapter receives a donation of d for some randomly selected d {51,..., 59}, (ii) three state chapters receive a lower donation of d L cents for some randomly selected d L {30,..., 38}, or (iii) four state chapters receive a lower donation of d L cents for some randomly selected d L {30,..., 38}. The latter two sets of bundles can be examined to explore how participants use information that highlights a state chapter receiving 0 cents as an excuse in the treatment. These low donation bundles the four bundles of the form detailed in (ii) and the four bundles of the form detailed in (iii) are parallel to the previously discussed 3/4-bundles and 4/4-bundles. The only difference is the donation amounts are now lower: d L {30,..., 38} versus d {51,..., 59}. Figure 6 shows the underlying donation amounts indeed matter. Panel A shows that participants in the control are approximately 40 percentage points less likely to choose bundles with the lower donation amounts. Consistent with excuse-driven responses to information crowding out the importance of a bundle s total donation amount, however, Panel B shows that the corresponding reduction is approximately half as severe in the treatment. To more broadly consider whether there is evidence for excuse-driven decision rules limiting the importance of the total donation amounts of bundles in the treatment, Table 7 shows regression results that build off of the linear probability model in Equation 3: P(choose bundle) = β 0 + β 1 treat + β 2 bundle count + β 3 treat bundle count + ɛ (3) where the variables are defined as: treat indicator for treatment, and bundle count counts according to the order in which a bundle is seen. 22

24 Figure 6: Fraction choosing to give via low-donation versus normal-donation bundles Fraction giving to state chapters Fraction giving to state chapters /4 3/4 x 4/4 3/4 low low Donations to state chapters 4/4 3/4 x 4/4 3/4 low low Donations to state chapters (a) Control (b) Treatment i/4-bundles; x il/4-bundles. Within each of these labeled categories, the order of the corresponding 8 bundles aligns with the underlying bundle type previously depicted in Table 1. Data include the 984 participants with accurately estimated X values from any of the information conditions for a total of 15,744 observations. The first and second columns in Table 7 only consider the additional bundles of the form (iii), where each of four selected state chapters receives the lower donation amount of d L cents for some randomly selected d L {30,..., 38}. The coefficient on treat shows that, contrary to the general finding that participants in the treatment choose bundles less often, participants in the treatment are 11 percentage points more likely to choose bundles that involve four out of four selected state chapters receiving a low donation amount. This finding is consistent with one of the more probable excuse-driven decision rules contributing to our results: participants in the treatment may use the existence of any selected state chapter not receiving a donation as an excuse not to give. Since these low-donation bundles involve all selected state chapters receiving a donation and thus are absent such an excuse, participants in the treatment may feel more compelled to give than participants in the control. The second column adds support to this possibility. In particular, while the coefficient on bundle-count shows that participants in the control are less likely to choose these low donation bundles as they progress in the study, the coefficient on treat*bundle-count shows that participants in the treatment are more likely to choose these low-donation bundles as they progress in the study. That is, the constraint of the proposed excuse-driven decision rule that participants should give whenever all selected state chapters receive a donation may become increasingly binding as participants progress through the study. Deviations later on in the experiment, after the excuse has been used more often, may involve a clearer inconsistency. The third and fourth columns in Table 7 only consider the additional bundles of the form (ii), 23

25 where three of four selected state chapters receive the lower donation amount of d L cents for some randomly selected d L {30,..., 38}. The fifth and sixth columns in Table 7 consider all fortyeight bundles faced by participants. Similar evidence for the limits of excuse-driven behavior persist: individuals in treatment are more likely to give to bundles with low total donation amounts, particularly as the study progresses. Appendix Table A.8 shows that this pattern of results is robust among the less selfish participants but not among the more selfish participants. That is, a potential desire for consistency only seems to limit the excuse-driven behavior of the less selfish, who are also the less excuse-driven, participants. Excuse-driven behavior may indeed come at a cost, and such a cost may be borne primarily by the less selfish types who may value their self-perceptions more highly. We will return to a discussion of this in Section 3. In the broadest and most generous sense, this set of results suggests that appealing to individuals desires to maintain consistency in their decision rules over time may help to mitigate excuse-driven behavior. Such a possibility echoes the finding in Lin, Zlatev and Miller (2016), where the removal of an excuse causes individuals to subsequently engage in more prosocial behavior. More broadly, this set of results is similar in spirit to the literature that find self-serving responses diminish when engaging in such would result in inconsistent behavior (Babcock et al., 1995; Haisley and Weber, 2010; Gneezy et al., 2016). 24

26 Table 7: Examining limits to excuse-driven behavior: Regression results from linear probability models of the likelihood to choose a bundle Restricted to bundles where D equals: All bundles 4d L 3d L (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) treat (0.027) (0.050) (0.024) (0.045) (0.019) (0.027) bundle count (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) treat*bundle count (0.002) (0.002) (0.001) (D 150) (0.019) (0.025) treat*(d 150) (0.023) (0.037) (D 150)*bundle count treat*(d 150)*bundle count (0.001) (0.001) Constant (0.017) (0.031) (0.015) (0.029) (0.013) (0.018) Observations Bundle FEs no no no no yes yes p < 0.10, p < 0.05, p < Standard errors are clustered at the participant-level and shown in parentheses. The results are from a linear probability model of likelihood to choose a bundle. treat is an indicator for participants in the treatment. bundle count counts according to the order in which a bundle is seen. (D 150) is an indicator for a bundle having a total donation amount of at least 150 cents. Data in all of the columns are from the decisions of participants with accurately estimated X values in any of the information conditions. Data in the first pair of columns and second pair of columns only involve the bundles where the total donation amount equals 4d L and 3d L, respectively. Data in the final pair of columns involves all bundles. 3 Conclusion Prior literature documents that, to avoid costly yet beneficial actions, individuals: avoid being asked to take such actions, avoid information related to such actions, and adopt self-serving views of uncertain or subjective elements in any provided information. A natural response to these forms of avoidance and self-serving behavior is to prevent the avoidance of the ask, provide unavoidable information, and eliminate any uncertainty or subjectivity. This paper shows that even the complete adoption of these policies is not sufficient to eliminate excuse-driven behavior. Individuals decline prosocial asks despite facing unavoidable information that is simple and certain. In particular, we document the use of irrelevant information and the underweighting of positive information as excuses to decline the ask. These excuse-driven responses are robust and even persist among individuals who self-select into viewing information 25

27 about the ask. From a policy perspective, our results suggest that the returns to optimizing the provision and contents of information on costly actions may be limited. Populations disinclined towards a costly action may be dissuaded by irrelevant information and unresponsive to positive information. Indeed, Figure 7 shows that the overall rate of giving to the state chapter bundles is rather insensitive to whether the condition allows for information avoidance as in info-choice, forces individuals to become fully informed as in info-amounts, or forces individuals to become fully informed and sums the total amount going to state chapters as in info-amounts-sum. When the total donation amount is greater than or equal to 150 cents (see Panel A of Figure 7), giving rates in the treatment only range from 47% - 53% across the three information conditions. These rates are robustly lower, by percentage points, than the giving rates observed in the control. Our results consequentially speak to difficulties in getting individuals to take costly actions in a variety of domains, and the limits of information or informational campaigns on affecting behavior in these settings. While the main focus of this paper has been on decisions with externalities (i.e., charitable actions that have a private cost and a social benefit), the same excuse-driven behavior may also be relevant to decisions with internalities (i.e., actions that have costs or benefits in the longer term). When individuals are making decisions about their health, education, or financial wellbeing, they may not respond in expected ways to available information. For example, many policy makers expected that providing individuals with information about caloric content of unhealthy foods would lead individuals to consume healthier options, although most research suggests that it has no such effect (Elbel et al., 2009; Swartz, Braxton and Viera, 2011). Even information from authority figures or experts often fails; patients fail to take their prescribed mediation after being told by their doctor do so (Osterberg and Blaschke, 2005). 19 Our finding that individuals may use information in a self-serving way to avoid incurring immediate costs suggests that other (non-informational) methods of encouraging behaviors, like those proposed in Nudge (Thaler and Sunstein, 2009) and being promoted by nudge units around the world, may be necessary to help encourage desired behavior. 20 Lastly, our results speak to existing behavioral models of self-signaling, self-deception, and motivated beliefs (see Bénabou and Tirole (2016) for a review and discussion). Excuse-driven processing of information may allow individuals to maintain positive views about themselves even as they avoid taking costly actions. This notion is supported by our finding that the less selfish participants are constrained by their excuse-driven behavior and end up giving in inefficient ways when their excuse is absent (see Panel B of Figure 7). If individuals desire consistency 19 Individuals who have recently had a heart attack also fail to take their once-a-day statin medication despite the associated increased risk of another cardiac episode (Rasmussen, Chong and Alter, 2007). 20 Our finding here is complementary to the (non-behavioral) work arguing that even if individuals process information in a standard, Bayesian way, they may still not be convinced by information simply because they are not marginal given the information being provided (Coffman, Featherstone and Kessler, 2017) 26

28 even while while they engage in excuse-driven behavior, seemingly inconsistent behavior may be rationalizable by a class of signaling models extended to incorporate excuses. 21 This may further help to reconcile the existence of naive types in other behavioral models. For example, if time-inconsistent behaviors like failing to go to the gym or failing to eat healthy despite intentions to do so may be excused away with irrelevant information, individuals may stay naive about their own biases. Figure 7: Across information conditions, fraction choosing to give via bundles Fraction giving to state chapters Fraction giving to state chapters Info-Choice Info-Sum Info-Sum-Amounts Info-Choice Info-Sum Info-Sum-Amounts Control Treatment Control Treatment (a) Bundles where D 150 (b) Bundles where D < 150 Data include the 984 participants with accurately estimated X values from the info-choice, info-amounts and info-amounts-sum conditions for a total of 47,232 observations. The error bars equal +/- 1 standard error, when clustering at the participant-level. 21 It also suggests that policy makers may want to consider interventions that exploit a desire for consistency, for example in settings where well know excuses to take desired actions can be removed. 27

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34 Appendixes 33

35 A Appendix Figure A.1: Example of revealed information on a 3/4-bundle after clicking second header Figure A.2: Example of revealed information on a 3/4-bundle after clicking third header 34

36 Figure A.3: Example of revealed information on a 3/4-bundle after clicking fourth header 35