Moral disengagement and charitable giving : experimental evidence from South Africa

Abstract

Moral disengagement has been linked to harmful behaviour and reduced inclination to assist others. Charitable giving, a form of assistance to others, is an important form of domestic resource mobilization in middle-income countries. Moral disengagement can impact decisions regarding charitable giving by enabling individuals to rationalize less generous behaviour. We conducted a survey to investigate how moral disengagement varies across demographic groups and whether moral disengagement helps explain charitable giving. Because studies have shown that interventions can reduce moral disengagement, research highlighting groups demonstrating more moral disengagement can help to target such interventions. Understanding factors associated with moral disengagement can also show whether such interventions might be worthy of investment. We find higher moral disengagement for men and younger and less educated and unemployed respondents. Moral disengagement was a significant predictor of self-reported less frequent charitable giving but not of the amount donated in an incentivised giving task.