Gender and charity
Experiment setup
The setup in essence was very simple. The location where we carried out the experiment was on the large public square adjacent to Leicester Square station. The two points in which the collections were taken were opposite corners of the square. That way a relatively equal flow of people was exposed to each collection point, with one flow coming from Leicester Square station and the other from Piccadilly Circus. Each collection point also lay at the opening to two smaller public paths each, with each smaller path having one parallel to the other point. Furthermore, the flow of people to each point were people who had not previously passed the other collection point. However, we can assume a minority of people did not notice the collectors or be more likely to donate over this longer exposure time to the option of donating. The twins stood at their designated points and beforehand I realized that one gender might be more confident than the other and might approach more people, or people of specific genders. Therefore, I implemented a rule that equal numbers of males and females had to be approached for the results of the test to remain fair. Approaching and asking for donations was initially kept at a minimum. However, without reaching out, we received significantly fewer donations, so it made it a necessary action. On Saturday 12 th of August the twins collected donations in two one-hour intervals, with an hour break in between. The donations were collected starting from midday. In the second interval of collecting donations the twins swapped places with each other to eliminate a bias that could be presented by the two different collection points. The charity they were collecting money for was Heart Foundation.
Outcome
Gender
Male
donations
Female donations first hour
Male
donations
Female donations second hour
first hour
second hour
Male twin
2
4
3
5
Female twin
3
7
3
5
Explanation
While conducting the experiment a few ‘nudge’ characteristics became clear from examination and a prerequisite list of possible characteristics donors might display. The first obvious observation from the results was that not only that females donated more often, but that there was a higher chance a donation would be given if a female was asking for it. Interestingly, another observation that can be deduced by looking at the results was the Piccadilly Circus side was more likely to receive donations. I thought this might be the case, as the Leicester Square stations donation point is a lot more crowded than the Piccadilly Circus side, resulting in people ’ s stress levels increasing and their likelihood of making a donation decreasing. Three main smaller observations were also made. It was found that when people in a group were asked for donations, they were more likely to donate. I put this down to the peer pressure that causes those in a group to ‘ do the right thing ’ and be seen as generous. However, it is also possible that the nature
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