EXPRESS: Leveraging Creativity in Charity Marketing: The Impact of Engaging in Creative Activities on Subsequent Donation Behavior

Charities are constantly looking for new and more effective ways to engage potential donors in order to secure the resources needed to deliver their services. The current work demonstrates that creative activities are one way for marketers to meet this challenge. A set of field and lab studies show that engaging potential donors in creative activities positively influences their donation behaviors (i.e., the likelihood of donation and the monetary amount donated). Importantly, the observed effects are shown to be context independent: they hold even when potential donors engage in creative activities unrelated to the focal cause of the charity (or the charitable organization itself). The findings suggest that engaging in a creative activity enhances the felt autonomy of the participant, thus inducing a positive affective state, which in turn leads to higher donation behaviors. Positive affect is shown to enhance donation behaviors due to perceptions of donation impact and a desire for mood maintenance. However, the identified effects emerge only when one engages in a creative activity—not when the activity is non-creative, or when only the concept of creativity itself is made salient.

Comedy Movies and Stock Returns of Locally Headquartered Companies: Evidence from China

We utilize data on comedy moviegoers from 18 cities in China to investigate the impact of the positive mood triggered by these movies on the stock returns of locally headquartered listed companies. We find that although these movies have no relation to investment itself, the sentiment triggered by these movies could affect the risk decision making of investors. Moreover, the stock returns of locally headquartered companies become significantly negative after comedy movies are screened in their respective cities. These results support the mood maintenance hypothesis. This research also provides new evidence for the presence of home bias in capital markets.JEL Classification: G11; G12

Valentine Street Promotes Chivalrous Helping

In a field setting, male passersby (N = 120) were asked by a female confederate to indicate the direction of Valentine Street (Martin Street in the control group). Thirty meters ahead, the participant encountered another female confederate who asked for help, claiming that a group of four disreputable-looking male confederates had taken her mobile telephone and refused to give it back. Participants primed with the cognition of “Valentine” helped the female confederate get her mobile phone back more frequently than those primed with the cognition of “Martin.” Results are explained in light of the gender role theory of helping, mood maintenance effects, and mood-elicited depth of information processing.