personalized persuasion, attitude, behavior and personality traits in a non-profit e-commerce

RUNNING HEAD: PERSONALIZED PERSUASION IN NON-PROFIT ADVERTISING

The Influence of Previous Behavior and Personality Traits on the Effect of

Personalized Marketing Communication for Non-Profit Purposes

A case study about personalized persuasion in Kiva Microfunds' advertisements

Merel Sonnemans

ANR 863953

Master thesis

Communication and Information Sciences

Specialization: Business Communication and Digital Media

Faculty of Humanities

Tilburg University, Tilburg

Supervisor: Dr. A. Alishahi

Second Reader: Dr. J. Schilperoord

June 2014

PERSONALIZED PERSUASION IN NON-PROFIT ADVERTISING

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Acknowledgement

This master thesis represents the final stage of my master Communication and Information

Sciences at Tilburg University. The master Communication and Information Sciences was the

next step after successfully finishing my Bachelor's degree Communication and Information

Sciences at the Radboud University Nijmegen. The switch to Tilburg University provided the

opportunity to approach Communication and Information Sciences from another angle and the

specialization Business Communication and Digital Media allowed me to gain specialized

knowledge about an interesting and growing field of study. With this master thesis about

personalized persuasion in online advertisements I hope to have made a valuable contribution

to the body of research in this field and more specifically about the role of personalized

persuasion in online non-profit marketing communication.

This master thesis would not have been possible without the help of my supervisor Dr.

A. Alishahi, who provided valuable feedback on the design, execution and writings of this

thesis. Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude towards Dr. C.S. Shahid. Without him,

I would not have been able to conduct this research about personalized advertising as a case

study of Kiva Microfunds. Especially in the early stage of the research, his insights provided

much guidance through a sometimes complicated design and provided valuable tips and

feedback. Also towards Dr. J. Schilperoord I would also like to express my gratitude. He did

not only provide valuable insights about the design, but also helped me through the statistical

challenges. His guidance prevented me to get lost in the web of statistical tests and results.

Finally, I would like to say a word of appreciation to all friends and family members

that contributed in any way. Their support and enthusiasm motivated me through the process

and the realization of this master thesis.


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Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the role of personalization in marketing communication for

non-profit purposes and to identify specific consumer characteristics which influence the

effect of personalized advertisements. This research was designed as a case study to

investigate how the effect of the four persuasive principles reciprocity, social proof,

commitment & consistency and sympathy in personalized advertisements for micro funding

projects of Kiva Microfunds is influenced by whether or not a person contributed to a micro

funding project before and by a person's personality traits.

A sample of 347 participants participated in the study by filling out an online

questionnaire. They all evaluated five advertisements of micro funding projects. Four of the

advertisements were embedded with one of the four persuasive communication strategies and

one advertisement was neutral. The participant's behavior and attitude determined the

effectiveness of the advertisement. Attitude was measured by means of an evaluation of the

project on several statements. Behavior was measured by asking all the participants to divide

a (fictional) amount of 100 dollar among at least two of the projects. All participants were

asked about their previous contributing behavior to non-profit organizations and micro

funding projects in particular. Their personality traits were determined by the HEXACO

model, which distinguishes six personality traits: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality,

Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience.

The findings reveal that overall, social proof was evaluated most positive. Furthermore

the results indicate an important role for previous behavior in the effectiveness of

personalized advertisements through the persuasive strategies. When a person has contributed

in the past, the strategies social proof and reciprocity lead to the highest contributions, but

when a person has not contributed before the strategy sympathy leads to the highest

contributions. In addition to previous behavior, personality traits also influence the effect of

the persuasive communication strategies in personalized advertisements. Also, the results

indicate the existence of a three-way interaction between personality traits, previous behavior

and the communication strategies.

The findings of this explorative study provide an initial insight into the influence of

previous behavior and personality traits on personalized advertising for non-profit purposes

and provide many angles for future research to further investigate the initial results.


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Table of contents

Acknowledgement ...................................................................................................................... 2

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Table of contents ........................................................................................................................ 4

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5

2. Theoretical framework ........................................................................................................... 7

2.1 Personalization in marketing communication ............................................................. 7

2.2 Implementing personalization in persuasive strategies ............................................... 9

2.3 The influence of previous behavior ........................................................................... 11

2.4 How personality traits affect behavior ....................................................................... 12

2.5 HEXACO personality traits and persuasive strategies .............................................. 13

3. Method ................................................................................................................................. 18

3.1 Design ........................................................................................................................ 18

3.2 Data collection ........................................................................................................... 19

3.3 Sample ....................................................................................................................... 19

3.4 Procedure ................................................................................................................... 19

3.5 Stimuli ....................................................................................................................... 20

3.6 Measurements ............................................................................................................ 21

4. Results .................................................................................................................................. 23

4.1 Hypothesis 1 .............................................................................................................. 23

4.2 Hypothesis 2 .............................................................................................................. 25

4.3 Hypotheses 3a-3f ....................................................................................................... 26

4.4 Hypothesis 4 .............................................................................................................. 32

5. Discussion & Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 37

5.1 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 37

5.2 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 39

5.3 Future research .......................................................................................................... 41

5.4 Conclusion and implications ..................................................................................... 42

References ................................................................................................................................ 43

Appendix A: Questionnaire ...................................................................................................... 48

Appendix B: Advertisements ................................................................................................... 60


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1. The Influence of Previous Behavior and Personality Traits on the Effect of

Personalized Marketing Communication for Non-Profit Purposes

More and more organizations are conducting business in online environments.

Organizations commonly integrate web shops and communication tools such as online

customer services these days. An organization’s website can be considered the main channel

of communication with consumers (Miller, 2012).

A new trend in these online environments is creating a high level of personalization

(Pappas, Giannakos, Kourouthanassis & Chrissikopoulos, 2013), which is often applied in e-

commerce. E-commerce can be seen as a technical online assistance for selling and buying

products and services (Adolphs & Winkelman, 2010). But personalization can also be applied

in other areas of marketing such as advertising, which is used to built a product image and

stimulate direct purchase through providing information about the product, service or business

itself (Park, Shenoy & Salvendy, 2008). Personalization in e-commerce or advertising refers

to the act of providing customers with tailored content (such as products and services) with

certain goals in mind. Personalization is based on knowledge about customers and visitors of

the website. This information is obtained through service and user interaction (Pappas et al.,

2013) and is used to make personalized adaptations in the online environment (Goy,

Ardissono & Petrone, 2007).

That personalization is a concept worth considering is supported by the finding that a

majority of consumers are interested in receiving personalized content (Goy, Ardissono &

Petrone, 2007). But what benefits does personalization bring for marketing purposes?

Personalization in websites and other communication tools enables a personal dialogue with

the customer, which strengthens their tie to the organization (Adolphs & Winkelman, 2010).

Online personalization helps companies to recognize and understand their customers and

helps to collect customer feedback. In the end, this helps to gain more insight into the needs

and wants of customers, which can be translated into improvement of existing products and

services or the creation of new products and services. Furthermore, it enables organizations to

follow market trends (Goy, Ardissono & Petrone, 2007; Schubert & Ginsburg, 2000).

There are three types of information that offer possibilities for online personalization:

information about the customer, information about the device on which a person accesses the

internet and contextual information (Goy, Ardissono & Petrone, 2007). The first type of

information takes into account among other things the customer's interests, preferences, needs


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and wants (Goy, Ardissono & Petrone, 2007). This can include for example previous behavior

and personal characteristics, which form the base of preferences or interests.

To create the most effective personalized communication, it should be understood and

evaluated how personalization should be designed to create the best match between the

interests and preferences of individuals in an organization’s target group and the message

(Chellappa & Sin, 2005). It would therefore seem that besides information about individuals

in the target group, also understanding which type of personalization fits which individual’s

characteristics is key to create the most effective personalized communication.

Fogg (2002) initiated the term persuasive technology. Persuasive technology refers to

the interactive systems which are designed to affect the attitudes and behavior of their users.

For persuasive technology to have an effect, they should not only deliver the right message,

but also deliver it at the right time and in the right way (Fogg & Eckles, 2007). Related to this

is the relatively new term persuasive profiling. Persuasive profiling is strongly tied to

personalization in marketing communication. It creates personal profiles which indicate which

influence strategies are expected to be most effective in changing attitudes and behavior of an

individual. Persuasive profiles can be used in persuasive technologies to adapt to user’s

responses by selecting the most effective influence strategy based on collected information

about the user in their profile. Systems that implement this method have shown to increase

their effectiveness (Kaptein, 2012).

But which target group characteristics are interesting to focus on? What makes people

unique? Every person has his own personality, which combines a set of personality traits

(Sarker, Bose, Palit & Haque, 2013). Several previous studies revealed that a person’s

personality traits determine the extent to which persuasive communication messages make an

impact on individuals (Hirsh, Kang & Bodenhausen, 2012) and that personality traits

influence behavior (Chavosh, Halimi & Namdar, 2011; Verplanken & Herabadi, 2001). This

could imply that personality traits could be an important factor to consider in the design of

personalized persuasive marketing communication.

And as communication for e-commerce is mostly concerned with attempting to

persuade people to perform desired behavior, a person’s previous actions might be a good

indicator of future behavior. No studies were found that looked into this subject in this area,

but in other areas of research, such as psychology, past experience did prove to be a factor to

consider (e.g. Hensley, Cashen & Lewis, 1985).

In the field of personalized communication, plenty of previous studies have been

conducted, but most of the studies about online personalization in persuasive communication


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focus on profit-orientated organizations. Less is known about the effect of embedding

personalized strategies into non-profit e-commerce websites. Results of one of the few studies

that have dealt with the topic of persuasive communication in non-profit marketing revealed

that it can be very effective and that especially personal contact is an important determinant

for effectiveness (Dellavigna & Gentzkow, 2009). This reinforces the idea that

personalization can be beneficial to implement in persuasive communication such as

advertising, for non-profit purposes as well. This, together with the possible relation between

personality traits, previous behavior and the most effective personalization strategy has led to

the following research question:

RQ: How does the effectiveness of the persuasive (marketing) communication strategies in

personalized advertisements for non-profit purposes interact with a person’s previous

behavior and personality traits?

To investigate this research question, this study was designed as a case-study, focusing

on the non-profit micro-funding organization Kiva Microfunds (www.kiva.org). This non-

profit organization allows people to lend small loans to different projects all over the world.

These projects vary in nature, but are mostly small entrepreneurs in need of financial means to

make their business profitable.

2. Theoretical framework

2.1 Personalization in marketing communication

The general goal of marketing communication is reaching (potential) customers and

influencing their attitudes and behavior by informing them about products, services or ideas.

This should influence their decision-making and turn them into customers. Moreover, an

organization wants to differentiate itself from other organizations, by creating an additional

value and communicating this to (future) customers and other stakeholders (Solomon,

Marshall & Stuart, 2008). There are many ways to engage in marketing communication using

an online environment, from sending mailings to the overall style of the website. Many

organizations have included e-commerce to their business model and the website nowadays

does not only function as a possibility to brand the organization online, but has become the


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main point of interaction between organizations and consumers (Dolnicar & Lazarevski,

2009).

The website as main point of interaction offers organizations the possibility to

differentiate themselves from other organizations by offering an additional value to the

consumer. Therefore it is not surprising that websites are a common field for implementing

personalization techniques. Common forms of personalization found in websites are

anthropomorphized personalization (such as welcoming returning customers by mentioning

their name), recommendation systems and comparison shopping agents (Adolphs &

Winkelman, 2010; Wu et al., 2003). The value of personalization through the use of

recommendation agents lies in the increased customer's trust. This can be explained by the

higher perceived similarity between the consumer and the agent, enhancing the perceived

consensus between the two and only perceiving a small distinction between what the

recommendation agents recommends and what the decision of the consumer would have been,

increasing their intention to make a purchase (Komiak & Benbasat, 2006). Peppers and

Rogers' survey among web users found that in an e-commerce environment, customers expect

to be treated as individuals and expect to be offered personalized content. If this does not

happen they might even get annoyed. When permission is given, they not only expect but

moreover, they want websites to remember their basic personal data (as cited in Millard,

2003).

Personalization based on knowledge about consumer's characteristics can also be used

to enhance customer experience. A more positive customer experiences reinforces the

performance of e-commerce. Reinforcing web experience to enable greater e-commerce

performance would work quite the same across ethnic groups, nations and cultures and can be

achieved through communication and community services (Lee, 2006). This indicates that

tailoring persuasive marketing communication strategies to the appropriate characteristics of

groups of consumers can increase the positive experience and result in a higher degree of

desired behavior.

Personalization has shown to impact the decision-making process (Komiak &

Benbasat, 2006), which is in line with the general goal of marketing communication. Most of

the studies about personalization in e-commerce focus on implementations in e-commerce,

such as recommendation systems. For marketing communication purposes, personalization

offers opportunities to base messages on where the interest of the customer lies. Personalized

content is found to be perceived as more affective and it helps customers to decide (Tam &

Ho, 2005). Besides adding value, it supports consumers in their daily lives and can be


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seamlessly integrated in their daily activities. Customers needs can be met more easily, by

presenting a product at the right place and time. After exposure to personalized advertising,

consumers are left with a good impression, which increases their desire to make a purchase

(Chen & Hshieh, 2012). This way it seems that personalization in advertising is capable of

enhancing advertisings effectiveness.

However, the mentioned studied focused on commercial advertisements. Not much is

known about the effect of personalization in advertising for non-profit purposes. Studies that

focused on non-profit advertising generally looked at other differences. For example, Sciulli

and Bebko (2005) analyzed advertisements and came to the conclusion that non-profit

advertisements use more emotional appeals, where profit advertisements focus more on

information content. And even though personalization is becoming more prevalent in e-

commerce environments, no studies have tried to identify the possible value of

personalization for non-profit purposes.

2.2 Implementing personalization in persuasive strategies

Personalization is based on customer data (Pappas et al., 2013), which means that also

personalized advertising is based on customer data. But which specific customer data would

increase the effectiveness of personalization in advertising?

A person's personality traits make every individual unique (Sarker et al., 2013) and

might therefore be a good approach for implementing personalization in advertising. And how

about past experience? That could also play an important role in the context of making a loan

to a micro funding project. But before the possible influence of personality traits and previous

experience on effective personalization is discussed in more detail, this study starts with

exploring how implementations of several persuasive communication strategies, as proposed

by Cialdini (2001) influence an advertisement’s effectiveness. Those persuasive strategies

form the base of this study on which personalization in advertising takes place and are

expected to influence the attitude and behavior of customers, when embedded in e-commerce

advertisements for micro-funding projects.

The first strategy is reciprocity. Reciprocity relies on an essential rule in human social

conduct: the act of giving a (sometimes) unrequested and free favor, making the recipient to

feel indebt to return the favor (Cialdini, 2001). This does not only preside in relations between

individuals, but also between consumers and organizations (Goldstein, Griskevicius &

Cialdini, 2007). However, these different types of relations should be approached differently

to acquire the highest intention to reciprocate. While in personal relationship the symbolic


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character of gifts is valued, in commercial situations, such as e-commerce transactions, gifts

that are characterized by their economic, functional or social value that are perceived as more

valuable. This perception of high economic, functional or social value increases the

experienced satisfaction and the intention of the recipient to return the favor (Antón,

Camarero & Gil, 2013). Embedding reciprocity in persuasive communication might thus

increase desired behavior.

The second principle is social proof. As social beings, one important factor to

determine how to behave and decide is by looking at others. What do they do or what have

others done? Through this form of social validation people evaluate the correctness of their

opinions and decisions (Cialdini, Wosinka, Barrett, Butner & Gornik-Durose, 1999).

Especially important others such as friend and family affect attitude towards online

personalization (Lee & Park, 2009). By using techniques whereby previous actions of others

are indicated, people should be more easily persuaded to perform a certain behavior (Cialdini,

2001). A person's intention to perform behavior is partly determined by subjective norms.

These subjective norms themselves are a result of the normative beliefs of that individual and

their motivation to comply (Azjen & Fishbein, 1975). Moreover, consumers perceive ratings

and opinions of other customers as objective, resulting in perceiving the product or service as

more trustworthy (Schubert & Ginsburg, 2000). In other words: embedding the social proof

principle could be an effective method to stimulate specific behavior.

The third strategy of commitment and consistency has to do with the phenomenon

that people attempt to behave consistently with previously made statements (Cialdini, 2001).

Among individuals, especially in Western cultures, there is a prevalent need to be consistent.

The need for consistency has to do with preserving a positive self-image and avoiding being

called terms such as having two faces. This is illustrated by the study of Suh (2002), who

found that people who stay consistent in their opinions are evaluated more positively. This

need for consistency comes from an inborn need for predictability, stability and familiarity

(Swan, Stein-Seroussi & Giesler, 1992). The motivation for consistency influences

individual's expressions of preferences, where a person thus desires to stay consistent as well

(Gopinath & Nyer, 2009). This desire is especially persistent when the statement is made in

public and freely chosen (Cialdini et al., 1999). Especially in e-commerce, where data of

previous behavior of consumers is available, this principle can be applied easily and might be

accountable for an increase in desired behavior.

The fourth principle is sympathy and is based on the proposition that most people

prefer to agree to people they like, such as friends (Cialdini, 2001). However, in most cases of


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online persuasive communication other implementations are necessary, as the majority of

commercial transactions do not take place between friends. People feel more sympathy for

people who are physically attractive, who give complements or who are similar to themselves

(Cialdini, 2001). These findings offer possibilities for the sympathy strategy and these

strategies are effective in the sense that when a viewer experiences feelings of sympathy and

empathy, positive attitudes towards the advertisement are enhanced (Escalas & Stern, 2003).

The effect of experiencing sympathy in advertisements generates positive attitudes by

recognizing the positive feelings that the ad communicates. Moreover, experiencing sympathy

can cause that people develop more positive advertisement judgments and fewer negative

ones (Wright, 1973).

These persuasive principles and the effect they are expected to have, have led to the

first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Online advertisements for a non-profit organization with an embedded

persuasive communication strategy will positively affect attitude and behavior, as opposed to

online advertisements for a non-profit organization without an embedded persuasive

communication strategy.

2.3 The influence of previous behavior

Not many studies focused on the role of previous behavior with online contributions to

non-project projects. In other areas of research though, past experience has shown to be a

factor to consider in behavior. Hensley, Cashen and Lewis (1985) found clear differences in

preferences for counseling approaches due to past experience. Ouellette and Wood (1998)

found that especially for behavior which is not performed as frequently to create a habit (such

as making loans to micro funding projects), it is more likely that previous behavior

contributes to behavior intention. Also, previous experience has been shown to affect online

purchasing behavior by influencing risk perception and purchase intentions (Park & Stoe,

2005) and reduces perceived risks, as the customer has developed knowledge about the

vendor, online orders and product or service performance (Dai, Forsythe, Kwon, 2014).

Even though the lastly mentioned studies focused on commercial e-commerce

environments with a profit orientated view, their findings might be applicable to non-profit e-

commerce as well. Making a loan to a micro funding project is probably not the most

widespread and well known possibility to contribute to a social cause. Experience with this


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type of contributing might play a role in the effectiveness of certain strategies. In these

situations, perceived risk might be higher when someone has no experience with contributing

to a micro funding project before. As a result, people's perception of the projects might differ

among the group with experience and the group without experience. People with more

experience might value other elements in a project advertisement as they have developed a

knowledge about which elements of an advertisement should be paid attention to. It might for

example be the case that persuasive strategies which increase the economic value of the loan

are more effective for the group that has experience with making loans. On the other hand, the

(perceived) risk-reducing strategies might work better for people that have no experience with

making a loan.

The previous hypothesis is therefore further specified by the expectation that there are

differences in effectiveness between the persuasive strategies due to having experience with

micro funding or not. That has led to the second hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: There are differences in effectiveness of the persuasive communication

strategies between people who have contributed to micro funding projects in the past,

compared to people who have not contributed to micro funding projects in the past.

2.4 How personality traits affect behavior

Then the question arises which other factors besides previous behavior should be kept

in mind when implementing these persuasive communication strategies. As shortly mentioned

earlier, every individual intrinsically combines a different set of traits, attitudes and aptitudes.

This concept is understood as personality (Sarker et al., 2013). It reflects individual

preferences and differences and is therefore an interesting factor to consider in the decision-

making process and in designing online advertisements.

Customers make certain purchases to reflect their personality, which is especially

important for them in this time in which people are concerned about their image. Therefore, it

is essential for marketers to be aware of the possibility that personality traits influence

consumer behavior. Understanding specific consumer responses that are influenced by

personality traits provides marketers with beneficial customer insights (Sarker et al., 2013).

With this knowledge, marketers can try to tailor their communication to be relevant and

appealing for their target group, keeping the traits that characterize them in mind.


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The role that an individual's personality traits play in driving behavior has been the

topic for many researchers, however the findings have been inconclusive (Gopinath & Nyer,

2009). A supporting finding is the tendency for buying to be strongly based in personality,

implied by significant correlations that were found between purchase frequencies of typical

impulse products and individual differences, which were personality-based (Verplanken &

Herabadi, 2001). Another more recent study among Singaporean consumers also found that a

consumer’s characteristics impacted impulse buying behavior (Chavosh, Halimi & Namdar,

2011). But not all studies seem to support these findings (Sarker et al., 2013).

Nevertheless, especially in personalized persuasive marketing communication these

personality traits could be a factor that explains why specific persuasive strategies are

possibly more effective for certain individuals than for others. Previous research by Hirsh,

Kang and Bodenhausen (2012) studied the effect that adapting persuasive communication to

personality traits has on the impact of the message. The findings revealed that effectiveness of

persuasive communication that is matched to personality traits is correlated higher compared

to advertisements that are not matched to personality traits. Therefore it seems that tailoring

persuasive communication to fit an individual's personality traits, offers additional value to

marketing communication.

Besides these results, not much is yet known about the effectiveness of matching

personality traits to persuasive strategies. But as the results seem to indicate that personality

traits are a factor to consider, is it expected that persuasive strategies of Cialdini (2001) will

be most effective when they are combined with a personality trait that 'fits' the strategy. Thus,

an individual's personality might be correlated with the persuasive strategy that would be

most effective for them.

2.5 HEXACO personality traits and persuasive strategies

In order to identify the matches between persuasive strategies and personality traits, it

is necessary to introduce a model which describes personality traits. The model used in this

study is the HEXACO model, which consists of six dimensions. The model was created as an

alternative to the widely used Big Five and Five-Factor Model. It was re-organized to

eliminate some of the limitations of those models and to create a simpler theoretical

interpretation (Lee & Ashton, 2004).

The most obvious difference is the additional dimension of Honesty-Humility. The

importance of assessing this extra dimension is that the Honesty-Humility trait provides better

prediction on certain facets than the Big Five or Five Factor Model (Ashton & Lee, 2005).


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The Big Five and Five Factor Model combine in the two domains of Agreeableness and

Emotional Stability the same facets as the HEXACO does in three domains: Agreeableness,

Emotionality and Honestly-Humility. This three dimensional space creates the possibility for

a more accurate matching in personality structure, a better understanding of the personality

domain and practical utility in combining personality traits with related criteria (Ashton &

Lee, 2007). The remaining three dimensions (Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness

to Experience) are similar in the models.

These six dimensions each subsume a set of facets, which describe the dimension in

more depth (Ashton & Lee, 2005). The characteristics of each of the six facets provide the

possibility to predict which facets match best with specific persuasive strategies.

Honesty-Humility is the first factor in the HEXACO model and entails the facets

sincerity, avoidance of greed, modesty and fairness (Lee & Ashton, 2004). High scores on the

trait of Honesty-Humility imply that a person genuinely cares about interpersonal

relationships, avoids fraud and corruption, does not care about high social status or luxury and

is modest. Past research has shown that persons who score low in Honesty-Humility are

hypersensitive to reward, less sensitive to potential losses and take greater risk (Weller &

Thulin, 2012). If this is true for people low in Honestly-Humility, that might imply that

people who score high on this dimension are less risk-taking and will look for affirmative

support. The strategies of social proof and reciprocity might both provide means to decrease

perceived risk, by showing that others have supported this cause and by getting a reward,

which might decrease the sense of risk. Therefore these strategies were expected to be

positively related to Honesty-Humility.

The second dimension Emotionality represents a person's emotional vulnerability and

emotional sensitivity and is described with the facets fearfulness, dependence, anxiety, and

sentimentality (Lee & Ashton, 2004). They depend on the emotional support from others,

which is why it is expected that social proof is positively related to Emotionality. Also

reciprocity is expected to relate positively, as people with high scores on Emotionality are

quickly anxious about uncertain situations (Lee & Ashton, 2004). Reciprocity might reduce

that uncertainty by providing a reward for their support. Finally, high scores on Emotionality

indicate a strong social bond and empathic sensitivity to the feelings of others (Lee & Ashton,

2004), which could imply a positive relation with the strategy of sympathy. For people who

score high on this dimension, the most effective strategies might thus be social proof,

reciprocity and sympathy.


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The third dimension is Extraversion, which includes the facets expressiveness, social

boldness, sociability, and liveliness. High scores on this dimension refer to a high dramatic

level in a person's interpersonal style and a person's comfort in a variety of social situations,

enjoyment in conversations and a high level of enthusiasm and energy (Lee & Ashton, 2004).

Extraversion is found to be positively related to achievement, stimulation and hedonism and

the corresponding behavior can be considered as assertive, active and sociable (Roccas, Sagiv,

Schwartz & Knafo, 2002). Because of the sociable and enthusiastic nature of people who

score high on Extraversion, it is expected that this dimension is positively related to the

strategies of social proof and sympathy.

The fourth dimension Agreeableness subsumes the facets forgiveness, flexibility,

patience and gentleness. High scores on this dimension implies that a person is more willing

to put trust in a person that has done them harm, the tendency to be lenient and mild in social

interactions, to be calm and patient and willing to compromise. The strategy of commitment

and consistency is expected to match with a high level of Agreeableness, since high scores on

Agreeableness indicate an avoidance of conflict (Lee & Ashton, 2004). This could result in

attempting to stay consistent with previously made statements. Also reciprocity is expected to

match with high scores on Agreeableness, as the gentle and mild nature of these people might

indicate the willingness to return the favor. A high level of Agreeableness reflects values of

social equality and humanism (Lee, Ashton, Pozzebon, Visser, Bourdage & Ogunfowora,

2009) which could suggest that people high in Agreeableness are more sensitive to

expressions of sympathy. Moreover, they easily put trust in others (Lee & Ashton, 2004),

which might reinforce the effect of the sympathy strategy. Agreeableness is thus expected to

relate positively to commitment & consistency, reciprocity and sympathy.

The fifth dimension is Conscientiousness, which is described with the facets

organization, diligence, perfectionism, and prudence. High scores account for people

preferring order in one's surroundings, carefully evaluating options and being concerned with

detail (Lee & Ashton, 2004). Based on these facets, it is expected that people high in

Conscientiousness are more negatively related to the persuasive strategies. They are expected

to be less sensitive to persuasion through e.g. social norms, because they are more likely to

carefully and objectively evaluate the different options. The strategy that will most likely gain

the most results for people with high scores is expected to be reciprocity. Reciprocity leads to

the most 'profitable' outcome from an economical perspective because the value of the loan

increases. However the general expectation is that Consciousness will be related more


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negatively to the persuasive principles than the other dimensions, the strategy of reciprocity

might in contrast be positively related.

Finally, the dimension Openness to Experience refers to a person's intellect in terms

of intellectual curiosity, or inquisitiveness and suggests specific behavior rather than cognitive

ability. This dimension subsumes the facets aesthetic appreciation, inquisitiveness,

unconventionality and creativity. People, who score high on this dimension enjoy nature's

beauty, have a wide interest, are innovative and have a tendency to accept the unusual (Lee &

Ashton, 2004). In contrast, people scoring low are supportive of the existing social order and

have potentially inflexible morals and rules about how the world should operate. They are

more likely to adhere to conventional stereotypes and are more open to information that is

inconsistent with social norms (Flynn, 2005). In the light of this study, these findings imply

that when a person scores high on Openness, the best matching strategy might be sympathy.

As they are less sensitive to conventional social norms these people might be guided more by

the feeling they get from the individual who requests a loan.

These expected relationships between personality traits and persuasive strategies have

led to the following set of hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3a: The personality trait Honesty-Humility is positively related to the persuasive

communication strategies of social proof and sympathy.

Hypothesis 3b: The personality trait Emotionality is positively related to the persuasive

communication strategies social proof, reciprocity and sympathy.

Hypothesis 3c: The personality trait Extraversion is positively related to the persuasive

communication strategies social proof and sympathy.

Hypothesis 3d: The personality trait Agreeableness is positively related to the persuasive

communication strategies commitment & consistency, reciprocity and sympathy.

Hypothesis 3e: The personality trait Conscientiousness is positively related to the persuasive

communication strategy reciprocity.

Hypothesis 3f: The personality trait Openness to Experience is positively related to the

persuasive communication strategy sympathy.


17

Besides personality traits, it was discussed earlier that past experience with micro

funding is expected to lead to differences in the most effective strategy as well. As both of

these factors are expected to have an impact on the effectiveness of strategies, there might be

a relationship between them. A study about online purchasing behavior showed that

consumer's characteristics such as previous web experiences and his or her personality both

impacted the decision making process (O'Cass & Fenech, 2003). In another field of research,

previous experience and individual differences such as a person’s personality were taken into

consideration, with regard to risk perceptions. It showed that past experience should be

considered an individual difference and is related to certain personality profiles in explaining

differences in risk perception (Barnett & Breakwell, 2001). Even though the constructs in

these previous studies are not exactly equal to the constructs in this research, it does provide

an indication that a relationship exists between past experience of consumers and their

personality.

It is therefore expected that past experience as an individual difference interacts with a

person's personality traits in affecting which strategy has the most influence. For example, a

person that has experience with making a loan might still be affected more by the knowledge

that he or she has about making loans than by the possible interaction between persuasive

strategies and his or her personality traits. Or perhaps, the effect of one of the strategies is

strengthened by certain personality traits. Either way, the expected differences in interactions

between personality traits, previous behavior and effective strategies have led to the following

and final hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: The expected interactions between persuasive communication strategies and

personality traits are different between individuals who have contributed to micro funding

projects in the past, compared to individuals who have not contributed to micro funding

projects in the past.


18

3. Method

3.1 Design

The design of the experiment was a 5 x 5 within-subject design with 5 persuasive

principles (reciprocity, social proof, commitment & consistency, sympathy and neutral) and 5

project descriptions as within-subject factors.

The effectiveness of the advertisements was in the first place determined by the

behavior of the participants, and secondly by their attitudes towards the advertised project. To

be able to measure the effect of attitude and behavior, five groups were created. Participants

were presented with five identical project descriptions, but the implemented strategies in the

project descriptions rotated among the groups. This way the design controlled for preferences

for a project description. The design also controlled for country, by combining the project

description in every condition with a different country, thus a total of 25 countries was used.

This meant that every combination between country, project description and strategy was

unique. Table 1. illustrates the design.

Table 1: Design of the experiment.

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4 Project 5

Reciprocity A B C D E

Social proof E A B C D

Com & Con D E A B C

Sympathy C D E A B

Neutral B C D E A

The independent variables in this experiment were the project description and

persuasive strategy. The dependent variables were the participant's behavior and attitude. The

study included two random variables, which were not factors in the design. These variables

were the previous behavior with regard to contributing to micro funding projects or

organizations and personality traits. The random variables were measured to explain the

results of this study in more depth. Previous behavior and personality traits were treated as

random variables to prevent a highly complicated design of the experiment.


19

3.2 Data collection

The data was collected by conducting an online questionnaire. There were five

conditions with five advertisements. Each of the conditions included a set of five unique

combinations of a project description and a persuasive principle. Every condition included the

four persuasive strategies and one neutral advertisement. The data that was collected by

means of the online questionnaire was analyzed statistically with several statistical tests.

3.3 Sample

A total of 347 participants, of whom 223 men and 124 women participated in the

experiment. The mean age of men was 39 (SD = 12) and the mean age of women was 33 (SD

= 12). The mean age of the total sample was 37 (SD = 13) and varied between 19 and 73. The

education levels varied between primary education and a Master's Degree. The majority

(82%) of the participants had finished either a Bachelor's or a Master's degree at a university.

Almost all of the participants (97%) held the Dutch nationality. Of the total number of

participants, 171 had not contributed to a micro funding project before, of whom 92 men and

79 women, and 176 had contributed to a micro funding project before, of whom 131 men and

45 women.

The participants were randomly assigned to one of the five groups. There were 73

participants in group A, 72 participants in group B, 66 participants in group C, 73 participants

in group D and 63 participants in group E.

3.4 Procedure

The questionnaire was spread through e-mail and social media platforms such as

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Participants who were found on social media platforms were

found in different types of groups and approached via a direct personal message. It was

attempted to find participants in many different types of groups, to maintain a natural variety

in the sample. At the same time, as previous behavior was treated as a random variable, it was

attempted to both reach groups of participants that most likely had experience with

contributions (such as in groups about micro funding and non-profit marketing) and neutral

groups for participants without experience (such as in groups about geographical areas and

educational institutes). Besides the personal approach with direct personal messages, also

general messages were posted on several platforms and in groups. Participants were asked to

fill out the questionnaire, which took approximately 10-20 minutes.

The questionnaire started with an introduction, in which participants were welcomed

to the questionnaire and given a short overview of how the questionnaire was built up. After


20

the introduction, the first block of questions followed. These questions regarded the

participant's previous contributing behavior to non-profit organizations or other good causes.

If participants indicated never to have contributed in the past, they were asked if they were

willing to do so in the future.

The second block included the advertisements of the projects. Participants were first

asked to read a short text, which presented them with the scenario that they were registered on

Kiva.org with an account and were looking around for at least two projects to contribute a

total amount of 100 dollars to. They were requested to pay attention to all the content of the

advertisements. They were also made aware that they would be asked several evaluative

questions about each advertisement and that they would be asked to divide the 100 dollars

after evaluating all five advertisements. After this text the five advertisements combined with

the attitude scales followed. For each advertisements, the participants were also asked how

detailed they evaluated the advertisement.

In the third block, participants were shown an overview with miniature images of the

projects that they had just been presented and were asked to divide the 100 dollars among at

least two of the projects. It was possible to divide the 100 dollars among more than two

projects. In order to proceed the questionnaire, the total amount of contributions needed to

equal 100.

Finally, in the last block participants were requested to answer questions about their

personality, by means of 24 statements. They were asked to indicate the extent in which they

agreed to the statement, when reviewing how they generally are. It was stressed that the

answers were processed anonymously and only for the purpose of this study. The

questionnaire ended with questions regarding the participant's demographic information, after

which they were thanked for their participation. The complete questionnaire can be found in

Appendix A.

3.5 Stimuli

The online advertisements were made to resemble the online projects descriptions on

the Kiva Micro-funding website. The project descriptions used in this study were fictional.

The advertisements were manipulated to embed one of the five persuasive principles,

combined with one of the five different project descriptions. Each of the five persuasive

principles was implemented the same way across the different conditions.

The first principle of reciprocity could be embedded in two ways, which would

probably both gain positive results. The first option was to offer participants a gift card to


21

spend on another project. The second option was to double the amount of their loan. The

second option was chosen, because it was expected that participants would value doubling the

amount of the project they already selected more, as the perceived economic value is probably

higher. The second principle, social proof, was implemented by including positive evaluations

by others by means of positive comments and high ratings. The third principle, commitment

and consistency was implemented by implying that the participants had liked the project in

the past, which should simulate consistent behavior. The fourth principle sympathy was

created by adding a personal message of the recipient of the loan. This message was personal,

positive, showed interest in the reader and implied the reader's capacity for understanding the

recipients need. All together this should lead to a higher liking of the person requesting the

loan. Finally, the last advertisement was neutral and had no persuasive strategy implemented.

Unnecessary details were left out of the advertisements. The details of the project on

the advertisements (e.g. height of requested loan, the already contributed amount, number of

loans in a country, annual income of a country) were manipulated to prevent these factors

from influencing. They were manipulated to represent amounts around similar levels.

The advertisements of group A can be found in Appendix B. The other groups were

presented with the same advertisements, only the combinations between the project

description and the persuasive strategy were rotated according to Table 1.

3.6 Measurements

The participant's attitude toward each of the project descriptions was measured on

seven 7-point semantic scales (α = .89) from the study by Smith, Terry, Manstead, Louis,

Kotterman & Wolfs (2008). The seven scales were: (1) unpleasant–pleasant, (2) bad–good,

(3) negative–positive, (4) unfavorable–favorable, (5) foolish -wise, (6) unenjoyable–

enjoyable, and (7) unsatisfying–satisfying. Respondents were asked to answer the question

'For me, contributing to this specific project would be ...'. High scores indicated a positive

attitude and low scores indicated a negative attitude.

Attitudes towards the presentation of the advertisements were measured with three 5-

point scales. Participants were asked if they liked the way the advertisement was presented to

them, if they thought the project was described convincingly and if they thought that the

advertisement was written in an appropriate tone. High scores indicated a positive attitude and

low scores indicated a negative attitude. In the same block, participants were asked how they

evaluated the advertisement (reading and paying attention to all the content or a global

overview) on the same 5-point scale.


22

Behavior was measured by creating a scenario for the participants, in which they got

the fictional amount of 100 dollar to spend on at least two projects. They were free to decide

how they divided the money among at least two of the projects that were shown to them. The

total amount of contributions needed to be 100 dollars.

Participants' personality was measured by means of the HEXACO model of

personality. The HEXACO model consists of six dimensions: Honesty-Humility,

Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience.

The six HEXACO dimensions were measured using the Brief HEXACO Inventory (BHI) (De

Vries, 2013), with 4 items per personality trait. Even though it measures each personality trait

on only 4 items, this measurement has shown high levels of convergent correlations validity

and only modest loss of validity (De Vries, 2013). This 24-item scale was more suitable for

the purpose of this study, compared to its 60-, 100- or 200-item versions, mainly because of

time constrains. The questionnaire needed to be constrained with regard to length, to prevent

participants from not finishing the questionnaire.


23

4. Results

Before the statistical analysis of the data was conducted, a factor analysis was

performed on the data for attitude to confirm that the several measurements of attitude

together indeed measured the same attitude. The method described the measurement for

attitude in two blocks and the factor analysis extracted two factors, which was in line with the

method. Factor 1 (α = .92) was constructed with the seven variables of the first block and

explained 58.9% of the variance and factor 2 (α = .79) explained an additional 11.4% and was

constructed with the first three variables of the second block. The last question in the second

block (regarding how detailed the participants evaluated the advertisement) was not included

in the attitude measurements, as it was not meant to serve as attitude measurement, but was

merely intended as an extra variable for information regarding evaluation style.

The factor analysis was followed by several analyses to investigate the hypotheses. An

alpha-level of .05 was used for all statistical results.

4.1 Hypothesis 1

The first hypothesis proposed that advertisements with an embedded persuasive

strategy would be more effective compared to neutral advertisements. To investigate this

hypothesis, two repeated measure one-way ANOVA's were conducted. The first ANOVA was

run with behavior per strategy (in terms of amount of contributions in dollars) as within-

subject factor and the second with attitude per strategy as within-subject factor. Table 2 shows

the descriptives from both attitude and behavior.

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of Attitude and Behavior per Strategy.

Attitude Behavior

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 4.92 1.03 347 20.95 19.54 347

Social proof 5.03 0.99 347 21.95 20.26 347

Commitment & consistency 4.85 1.01 347 17.38 19.09 347

Sympathy 4.80 1.06 347 20.43 20.24 347

Neutral 4.88 1.02 347 19.29 17.36 347


24

The one-way ANOVA's revealed only a main effect of strategy on attitude; F (3.93,

0.57) = 5.04, p < .001, r = .12. Mauchly's test indicated that the assumption sphericity was

violated for the main effect of attitude, χ² (9) = 21.01, p = .013. The degrees of freedom were

therefore corrected with the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.98). Contrasts revealed

that overall, advertisements with the strategy of social proof were evaluated significantly

more positive than advertisements containing reciprocity; F(1, 346) = 3.92, p = .048, r = .10,

commitment & consistency; F(1, 346) = 11.34, p < .001, r = .18, sympathy; F(1, 346) =

15.80, p < .001, r = .21, and the neutral strategy; F(1, 346) = 7.54, p = .006, r = .14.

There was no main effect of strategy on behavior, but as Table 1 shows, the standard

deviations of behavior per strategy were high and those substantial differences within the

strategies might be caused by the different project descriptions that were used. To investigate

that possibility, an additional mixed two-way ANOVA was conducted. The version of the

questionnaire was the between-subject factor and the behavior per strategy was the within-

subject factor. The ANOVA confirmed this possibility by revealing an interaction effect

between the version of the questionnaire that participants had filled out and the behavior per

strategy; F(16, 1352) = 3.40, p < .001, r = .20.

Because of these results, it was investigated further whether or not behavior differed

per project description by running a repeated measures one-way ANOVA for behavior per

project description. A main effect was found; F(3.9, 1199.8) = 10.72, p < .001, r = .18, which

indicated that there were differences in behavior between the project descriptions. Mauchly's

test indicated that the assumption sphericity was violated, χ² (9) = 31.91, p < .001. The

degrees of freedom were therefore corrected with the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ

=.98). Contrasts revealed that the amount of money contributed to project 1 (M = 14.19, SE =

0.92) differed significantly from the amount of money contributed to project 2 (M = 19.31, SE

= 1.05) F(1, 307) = 14.46, p < .001, r = .21, from the amount of money contributed to project

3 (M = 21.14, SE = 1.00), F(1, 307) = 24.66, p < .001, r = .27, from the amount of money

contributed to project 4 (M = 23.67, SE =1.22) F(1, 307) = 39.57, p < .001, r = .34 and from

the amount of money contributed to project 5 (M =21.47, SE = 1.21). F(1, 307) = 23.62, p <

.001, r = .27. Project 1 got the lowest contributions in general.

According to these results, the first hypothesis was not supported. The neutral

advertisement did not receive significantly less contributions or evaluations than the other

advertisements.


25

4.2 Hypothesis 2

The second hypothesis proposed that when past experience was taken into

consideration, the effectiveness of the persuasive principles would not be the same between

participants with experience and participants without experience in making loans to micro

funding project. This was investigated using two two-way mixed ANOVA. The first with

behavior per strategy as within-subject factor and previous behavior as between-subject

factor, and the second with attitude per strategy as within-subject factor and previous behavior

as between-subject factor . Only the first ANOVA revealed an interaction effect; F(4, 1364)=

3.36, p = .010, r = .10. This interaction indicated that when participants had not contributed to

micro funding projects before, advertisements with the strategy sympathy gained the highest

amounts of money. This was supported by contrasts, which showed that sympathy differed

significantly from reciprocity; F(1, 341) = 6.72, p = .010, r = .14, from social proof; F(1, 341)

= 10.22, p = .002, r = .17 and from the neutral strategy; F(1, 341) = 5.12, p = .024, r = .12.

For the group of participants that had contributed to micro funding projects before, the

strategies reciprocity and social proof got the highest contributions, which as mentioned

differed significantly from sympathy. Additionally, contrasts showed a difference between

social proof and commitment & consistency; F(1, 341) = 4.04, p = .045, r = .11. Commitment

& consistency received the lowest contributions in the experienced group. Table 3 shows the

descriptives and Figure 1 illustrates the interaction effects.

Table 3: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Previous Behavior.

Not Contributed before Contributed before

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 19.78 19.89 169 22.08 19.19 174

Social proof 19.49 18.76 169 24.33 21.40 174


Sympathy 23.63 22.67 169 17.31 17.04 174

Neutral 18.81 18.37 169 19.76 16.36 174


26

Figure 1: Interaction Effects between Previous Behavior and Strategies.

According to these results, the second hypothesis was supported. For participants with

experience in making a loan to a micro funding project, the strategies reciprocity and social

proof got the highest contributions. Participants who had not made a loan before contributed

most to the sympathy strategy.

4.3 Hypotheses 3a-3f

The set of hypotheses 3a through 3f proposed positive relationships between one of

the personality traits and one or more of the persuasive strategies. To be able to investigate

this set of hypotheses, the scores on the personality trait scales were re-coded into categorical

variables. Depending on the spread of the participants over the personality scores, the 20-30%

of participants with the lowest scores represented the group that scored low on that dimension

and 20-30% of the participants with the highest scores represented the group with high scores

on that dimension. The middle group was not taken into consideration.

For each personality trait, two mixed two-way ANOVA's were conducted. The first

ANOVA combined attitude per strategy as within-subject factor and one of the personality

traits as between-subject factor. The second ANOVA combined behavior per strategy as

within-subject factor and one of the personality traits as between-subject factor.

For the first personality trait Honesty-Humility, the ANOVA's revealed only a main

effect for attitude per strategy; F(3.9, 883.1) = 2.46, p = .046, r = .10. Mauchly's test indicated

that the assumption sphericity was violated, χ² (9) = 24.56, p = .004 and the degrees of

freedom were corrected with the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.97). This main

Not Contributed before

Contributed before

Amount of contributions in dollars


27

effect indicated overall, the projects were evaluated more positive by participants high in

Honesty-Humility compared to participants low in Honesty-Humility.

For the personality trait Emotionality, an interaction effect was found between

contributions per strategy and Emotionality; F(3.9, 735.5) = 2.95, p = .020, r = .13. The

assumption of sphericity was violated, χ² (9) = 17.72, p = .039. The degrees of freedom were

corrected with the Huynh-Feldt estimates (ɛ =.98) for sphericity. This interaction effect

indicated that there were significant differences between the height of contributions of

participants that scored low and participants that scored high on Emotionality. The strategy of

reciprocity gained high contributions from participants high in Emotionality, in contrast to

participants low in Emotionality. The strategy commitment & consistency on the other hand

worked better for participants with low than with high scores on Emotionality. This finding

was supported by the contrasts, which revealed that reciprocity and commitment &

consistency differed significantly from each other; F(1, 187) = 10.81, p < .001, r = .23.

Furthermore, as Figure 2 shows, there seemed to be a trend for social proof as the most

effective strategy overall. Social proof scores the highest in both conditions, but this was not

confirmed by contrasts. Descriptives of the interaction effect can be found in Table 4 and

Figure 2 illustrates the interaction effect.

Table 4: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Emotionality.

Low in Emotionality High in Emotionality

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 15.48 14.27 64 23.37 21.16 125

Social Proof 25.31 24.72 64 23.46 20.27 125


Sympathy 17.55 20.53 64 21.15 21.00 125

Neutral 19.98 19.12 64 17.10 15.94 125


28

Figure 2: Interaction Effects between Behavior per Strategy and Emotionality.

With regard to attitude per strategy and Emotionality scores, only a main effect was

found; F(3.7, 706.3) = 4.60, p = .002, r = .15. Again, the degrees of freedom were adjusted

with the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.93), as the assumption of sphericity was

violated χ² (9) = 39.08, p < .001. The main effect showed that regardless of strategy, all

projects were evaluated more positively by participants high in Emotionality compared to

participants low in Emotionality.

For the personality trait Extraversion, the ANOVA's revealed only a main effect for

attitude; F(3.9, 887.3) = 3.63, p = .006, r = .13. The main effect indicated that regardless of

strategy, the projects were overall evaluated more positively by participants who scored high

on Extraversion, compared to participants who scored low.

The third personality trait is Agreeableness. The ANOVA's for this personality trait

revealed two main effects. The first main effect was found for attitude per strategy. The

assumption of sphericity was violated (χ² (9) = 17.15, p = .046) and the degrees of freedom

were adjusted with the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.98). The main effect of

attitude for Agreeableness indicated that regardless of the strategy, the evaluation of the

projects was more positive for participants who scored high on Agreeableness compared to

participants who scored low.

The second main effect of the Agreeableness scores was found for behavior; F(3.9,

623.3) = 3.00, p = .019, r = .14, which also revealed that there were differences in the amount

of the contributions between the participants low in Agreeableness and high in Agreeableness.

For participants low in Agreeableness, the differences between the contributions per strategy

High in Emotionality

Low in Emotionality



29

were larger than for participants high in Agreeableness. For them, the amount of contributions

did not differ much between the strategies. Again, the degrees of freedom were adjusted with

the Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.97), χ² (9) = 17.83, p = .037.

ANOVA’s on the scores on the fifth personality trait Conscientiousness found an

interaction effect between contributions per strategy and Conscientiousness; F(4, 884) = 2,56,

p = .039, r = .10. Contrast revealed that advertisements with reciprocity got the highest

contributions from participants low in Conscientiousness and the lowest contributions from

participants high in Conscientiousness. In contrast, advertisements with the strategy of

commitment & consistency received the lowest contributions from participants with low

scores and higher contributions from participants with high scores. The contributions for the

strategy of reciprocity differed significantly from commitment & consistency; F(1, 221) =

7.18, p = .008, r = .18 and from sympathy; F(1, 221) = 4.70, p = .031, r = .14. Sympathy also

got higher contributions from participants with high scores compared to participants with low

scores, though the difference was less big, compared to the difference between commitment &

consistency and reciprocity. The descriptives of the interaction effect can be found in Table 4

and Figure 3 illustrates the interaction.

Table 5: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Conscientiousness.

Low in Conscientiousness High in Conscientiousness

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 24.36 23.46 86 18.26 15.92 137

Social Proof 20.87 18.54 86 21.95 19.24 137


Sympathy 18.31 20.98 86 21.26 19.52 137

Neutral 21.63 19.61 86 18.32 15.62 137


30

Figure 3: Interaction Effects between Behavior per Strategy and Conscientiousness.

Besides the interaction effect, the ANOVA’s also revealed a main effect for attitude

per strategy; F(3.9, 875.6) = 3.59, p = .007, r = .13. Again, the assumption sphericity was

violated, χ² (9) = 20.97, p = .013 and the degrees of freedom were corrected with the Huynh-

Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.97). This main effect revealed that regardless of strategy,

the projects were evaluated more positively by participants high in Conscientiousness

compared to participants low in Conscientiousness.

No overall interaction effect was found between Conscientiousness and attitude,

however contrasts did reveal some significant interactions between several strategies.

Reciprocity differed significantly from both social proof; F(1, 225) = 3.91, p = .049, r = .13

and commitment & consistency; F(1, 225) = 6.27, p = .013, r = .16. Whereas advertisements

with the strategy reciprocity were judged most positively by participants with low

Conscientiousness scores, they were judged less positive by participants with high scores.

Advertisements with the strategies social proof and commitment & consistency on the other

hand were evaluated most positive by participants with high scores and less positive by

participants with low scores, though the differences were small. The descriptives can be found

in Table 6 and Figure 4 illustrates the interaction.

High in Conscientiousness

Low in Conscientiousness



31

Table 6: Descriptive Statistics of Attitude per Strategy x Conscientiousness.

Low in Conscientiousness High in Conscientiousness

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 5.04 1.02 88 4.91 1.02 139

Social Proof 4.97 1.03 88 5.13 0.93 139


Sympathy 4.73 1.11 88 4.85 1.01 139

Neutral 4.97 1.05 88 4.92 0.99 139

Figure 4: Interaction Effects between Attitude per Strategy and Conscientiousness.

The ANOVA’s with the scores on Openness to Experience did not reveal any effects.

Besides these interaction effects, the results showed that social proof was consistently

among the most effective strategies. Also reciprocity seemed to be among the most effective

strategies in many cases, though less obvious as social proof. Even though these observations

were not all confirmed by the contrasts, it did seem to indicate a trend.

None of the (sub)hypotheses 3a-3f were entirely supported by the findings. Only

hypothesis 3b was partly supported, as reciprocity was positively related to Emotionality with

regard to behavior. There were some additional interaction effects, but they did not support

the hypotheses. For the group low in Conscientious, the reciprocity strategy resulted in the

High in Conscientiousness

Low in Conscientiousness

Attitude scores


32

highest contributions and a more positive evaluation. Social proof and commitment &

consistency on the other hand led to more positive evaluations by participants high in

Conscientiousness.

4.4 Hypothesis 4

The fourth hypothesis took past experience of participants into account and proposed

that the relationships between personality traits and persuasive strategies would be different

between people with or without experience in contributing to micro funding projects. To

investigate this hypothesis, every personality trait was tested by using two mixed three-way

ANOVA’s. The first ANOVA analyzed the relationship between the within-subject factor

attitude per strategy and the between-subject factors personality trait and previous behavior.

The second ANOVA was the same, except that it replaced the within-subject factor attitude

per strategy with behavior per strategy.

Between the persuasive strategies and the personality traits Honesty-Humility,

Openness to Experience, no additional effects were found for a three-way interaction

including previous behavior. For Extraversion, Emotionality, Agreeableness and

Conscientiousness additional results were found.

With regard to high and low scores on Extraversion, only a trend was found; F(4, 880)

= 2.11, p = .078, r = .10, but contrasts revealed a stronger three-way interaction effect

between the strategies commitment & consistency and neutral; F(1, 220) = 8.28, p = .004, r =

.19). These contrasts revealed that for participants that were low in Extraversion, the strategy

commitment & consistency lead to more contributions when they had contributed before

compared to those who had not. For participants high in Extraversion the opposite was found.

The neutral strategy got high contributions when participants were low in Extraversion and

had not contributed before, but when they were high in Extraversion and had not contributed

it led to much lower contributions. However, when people were high in Extraversion, the

opposite applied. The descriptives can be found in Table 7. Figure 5 and Figure 6 illustrate the

three way interaction.


33

Table 7: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Extraversion x Previous Behavior.

Contributed Strategy Low in Extraversion High in Extraversion

before? Mean SD N Mean SD N

Yes Reciprocity 18.73 18.29 60 20.82 15.65 51

Social Proof 22.92 23.76 60 23.84 17.79 51

Comm & Cons 20.80 21.77 60 13.16 16.88 51

Sympathy 17.12 19.35 60 18.12 16.29 51

Neutral 20.43 16.46 60 24.06 16.16 51

No Reciprocity 18.50 17.78 46 20.90 20.61 67

Social Proof 19.57 19.40 46 22.54 20.12 67

Comm & Cons 16.47 20.74 46 20.97 18.63 67

Sympathy 22.44 24.52 46 19.78 19.02 67

Neutral 23.02 21.86 46 15.82 14.91 67

Figure 5: Interaction Effects between Behavior Figure 6: Interaction Effects between per

Strategy and Extraversion for Participants who Behavior per strategy and Extraversion for

Contributed Before. Participants who had not Contributed

Before.

For the Emotionality scores an additional two-way interaction was found between the

amount of contributions per strategy and previous behavior; F(4.0, 736.2) = 2.63, p = .033, r

Low in Extraversion

Low in Extraversion

High in Extraversion

High in Extraversion




34

= .12. The assumption of sphericity was violated; χ ² (9) = 17.06, p = .048, and the degrees of

freedom were adjusted with Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.995). This interaction

indicated that contributions per strategy between participants who had contributed before and

those who had not contributed before differed, when only participants with the lowest and

highest scores on Emotionality were taken into account. Contrasts showed that especially

reciprocity differed from neutral; F(1, 185) = 5.8, p = .017, r = .17. Sympathy differed from

reciprocity; F(1, 185) = 6.9, p = .009, r = .19, social proof; F (1, 185) = 7.1, p = .008, r = .19,

and the neutral advertisement; F(1, 185) = 4.0, p = .048, r = .14. This showed that reciprocity,

social proof and neutral worked better for participants that had contributed before and

sympathy worked better for people that had not contributed before. Table 8 summarizes the

descriptives for the interaction effect.

Table 8: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Previous Behavior for Emotionality.

Not Contributed before Contributed before

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 18.03 20.18 91 23.17 18.57 98

Social Proof 21.10 19.94 91 26.87 23.21 98


Sympathy 24.47 23.22 91 15.71 17.48 98

Neutral 17.85 17.82 91 18.30 16.49 98

For the Agreeableness scores, an additional trend was found for a two-way interaction

between behavior per strategy and previous behavior; F(3.9, 622.1) = 2.27, p = .062, r = .12.

The assumption of sphericity was violated; χ ² (9) = 18.23, p = .033, and the degrees of

freedom were adjusted with Huynh-Feldt estimates for sphericity (ɛ =.98). Contrasts revealed

that sympathy led to higher contributions from participants who had not contributed before

and differed significantly from reciprocity; F(1, 158) = 4.46, p = .036, r = .16. Contrasts also

showed trends for differences between sympathy and social proof; F(1, 158) = 3.57, p = .061,

r = .15 and sympathy and neutral; F(1, 158) = 3.00, p = .085, r = .14. Social proof, reciprocity

and the neutral strategy worked better for participants that had contributed before.

Commitment & consistency performed badly for both groups (and between them it scored


35

worst for the participants that had contributed before) and differed significantly from social

proof; F(1, 158) = 4.17, p = .043, r = .16, and reciprocity; F(1, 158) = 4.17, p = .043, r = .16.

The descriptives can be found in Table 9.

Table 9: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Previous Behavior for

Agreeableness .

Not contributed before Contributed before

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 18.19 19.97 86 22.90 18.99 76

Social Proof 20.28 20.47 86 25.77 20.90 76


Sympathy 26.04 25.62 86 19.13 18.44 76

Neutral 16.60 18.97 86 18.67 15.92 76

The additional result for high and low scores on Conscientiousness only revealed an

additional interaction effect between contributions per strategy and previous behavior; F(4,

876) = 3.64, p = .006, r = .13. The two-way interaction between contributions per strategy and

previous behavior indicated that the group of participants with the highest and lowest scores

on Conscientiousness combined, there were differences between the amounts of contributions

per strategy, depending on whether someone had contributed to such a project in the past.

Contrast revealed that sympathy was most effective when participants had not contributed

before, compared to reciprocity; F(1, 219) = 7.3, p = .007, r = .18, social proof; F(1, 219) =

5.3, p = .022, r = .15, and the neutral strategy; F(1, 219) = 6.2, p = .013, r = .17. Furthermore,

contrast revealed that commitment & consistency differed significantly from the neutral

strategy; F(1, 219) = 5.3, p = .021, r = .15. The descriptives of the contributions per strategy

can be found in Table 10.


36

Table 10: Descriptive Statistics of Behavior per Strategy x Previous Behavior for

Conscientiousness.

Not contributed before Contributed before

Mean SD N Mean SD N

Reciprocity 18.99 20.11 99 21.90 18.72 124

Social Proof 18.41 18.46 99 24.02 19.02 124


Sympathy 23.39 23.95 99 17.52 16.04 124

Neutral 18.16 18.15 99 20.74 16.57 124

Summarizing, besides one trend between previous behavior, attitude or contributions

per strategy and personality traits, no three-way interactions were found. Hypothesis 4 was

not supported.


37

5. Discussion & Conclusion

5.1 Discussion

This research investigates the effectiveness of four persuasive strategies (reciprocity,

social proof, commitment & consistency and sympathy) and the influence of previous

behavior and personality traits on their effectiveness. As a case study for Kiva Microfunds,

this is investigated in the context of personalized advertisements for micro funding projects.

The effectiveness is determined by the (fictional) amount of contributions that each of the

advertized micro funding projects received and the attitude towards the advertisements.

When no other factors are taken into consideration, the four persuasive strategies do

not interact with the amount of received contributions or with attitudes towards the projects.

But with regard to attitudes, the advertisements with social proof are overall evaluated the

most positive compared to the other strategies. And even though there is no interaction

between contributions and persuasive strategies, throughout the study it is noticeable that

social proof and reciprocity are often among the strategies which lead to the highest

contributions, and that commitment & consistency is often among the strategies which lead to

the lowest contributions.

The interaction between having previously contributed to a micro funding project and

the effectiveness of persuasive strategies is confirmed. The strategies social proof and

reciprocity are the most effective strategies when a person has experience in contributing to a

micro funding project. The strategy sympathy on the other hand is most effective for people

who have never contributed to micro funding projects before.

An interaction between personality traits and persuasive strategies is also confirmed

for some personality traits, even though the interactions are different than expected. Whether

people are high or low in Emotionality and Conscientiousness affects the effectiveness of the

persuasive strategies. The strategy reciprocity leads to high contributions when people are

high in Emotionality, but to the lowest contributions when people are low in Emotionality. In

contrast, when people are low in Conscientiousness, reciprocity leads to high contributions.

With regard to Conscientiousness the strategy commitment & consistency varies much

between people with high and low scores. It leads by far to the lowest contributions when

people are low in Conscientiousness and to average results when people are high in

Conscientiousness.


38

Furthermore, there is an indication that a three-way interaction between personality

traits, previous behavior and persuasive strategies exists. With regard to Extraversion, the

strategy commitment & consistency leads to higher contributions when people are low in

Extraversion and have contributed before, compared to people with low scores who have not

contributed before. The opposite applies for people high in Extraversion. The neutral strategy

leads to high contributions when people are low in Extraversion and have not contributed

before, compared to people with low scores who have contributed before. Again, the opposite

applies for people high in Extraversion.

These findings do not all confirm the expectations. The first expectation was that the

persuasive strategies would have an effect in general, when no other factors were taken into

account. This is not confirmed. However there seems to be a trend for some strategies to work

better than others, which might be explained by the sample size. A larger the sample could

improve the significance of the results.

Even though not being able to confirm the first expectation might sound negative, it in

fact only reinforces the second (and confirmed) expectation that having past experience with

contributing to micro funding projects affects which strategy leads to the highest

contributions. Evidently, this plays an even more important role than was expected.

These findings provide important new insights into consumer behavior and

advertising, and strongly suggest the importance of taking previous behavior into

consideration for personalized advertising in the non-profit sector. Besides new insights, they

also support previous studies. The influence of previous behavior reinforces the findings of

Park and Stoe (2005), who found that past experience affects behavioral intentions, and of

Dai, Forsythe and Kwon (2014), who found that people with experience have developed a

knowledge about, among other things, which elements are important for them to pay attention

to. This could explain the difference in the effectiveness of strategies between the group with

experience and the group without experience. Observations of the qualitative data of the

study, in which participants explained their motivations for the distribution of the money,

indicate that participants with experience indeed developed a knowledge. In many cases, they

pointed out which elements of the project or advertisements they normally pay attention to,

such as the nature of the project or the comments of other contributors. In other words, in

many cases participants who contributed before have established certain considerations

concerning the evaluation of the advertisements, which influences the effectiveness of the

strategies. Implementing certain strategies which match with the behavior of experienced


39

contributors, can thus enable a greater e-commerce performance. This is in line with the study

of Lee (2006). And matching persuasive strategies seems to help consumers in making

decisions, in this case about the question to which project to contribute to, which is in line

with the study of Tam and Ho (2005).

The reason that specifically the strategies social proof and reciprocity work best for

people with experience and that sympathy works best for people without experience might lie

in the nature of the strategy. Experienced people might value it more that reciprocity increases

the economic value of the loan and that social proof increases the trustworthiness of the

project. Sympathy on the other hand, might work best for people without experience by

making them feel positive about the person that requests a loan. They might feel that this

person deserves the loan, and pay less attention to incentives such as increased value or

trustworthiness.

The expectations regarding personality traits are not all in line with the results, but

nevertheless personality traits do play a role in the effectiveness of the personalized

persuasive strategies. This is in line with the study of Hirsh, Kang & Bodenhausen (2012),

who found that matching strategies to personality traits correlates with effectiveness. The new

findings extend their findings, by providing new insight into how matching strategies can

actually affect consumer behavior by influencing the amount of contributions that a person

makes. It is expected that more interaction with personality traits can be found, because the

scores of personality traits of participants in this study were not spread wide enough around

the mean to produce two distinct groups with high and low scores per personality trait. This

probably explains why not every personality trait interacts with one or more strategies.

As not all the expected two-way interactions are confirmed, it is not surprising that the

three-way interactions are not all confirmed either. However there is an indication that three-

way interactions exist. Similar to the two-way interactions, the explanation for the lack of

results most likely has to do with the spread of high and low scores of the personality traits as

well.

5.2 Limitations

The main limitation of this study was the choice for a within-subject design with both

persuasive strategies and project descriptions as within-subject factors. Even though this did

pose a substantial limitation, the choice was made deliberately. To gain results about the

effectiveness of the different strategies, participants needed to evaluate every strategy. In a

between-subject design in which every participants evaluated only one project description, the


40

ecological validation of the study would be lowered severely. It is not a realistic scenario that

participants review only one project description when they want to make a loan to a micro

funding project. And moreover, in the case that every participant was presented with just one

project description, not all strategies could be studied. That would require many conditions

and consequently require much more participants. When only one or several strategies should

be selected, it would have been necessary to have an indication which strategies appear to be

most effective. These reasons together led to the choice to design this study as an explorative

study, which could from the starting point for future research. Nevertheless, the limitation of

the within-subject factors was considered in the design, by trying to control for the influence

of project description as much as possible. But even by rotating the strategies over the project

description, some influence of project description has affected the results.

Another limitation is lack of a detailed comparison of the advertisements. Even though

participants were asked to pay attention to all the advertisements, it might have affected the

results that there was no opportunity for a detailed comparison of all the advertisements after

the first exposure. Participants were only provided with miniature images of all the

advertisements when they were asked to divide the money, for the main reason that viewing

all the advertisements together increased the chance of identifying the manipulations easily.

This might also be the reason that project 1 got the lowest results in general.

The persuasive strategies were implemented the same way across the five groups. This

can have accounted for the lack of interactions between (most of) the personality traits and

behavior per strategy. It could be the case that certain personality traits respond better to a

specific implementation of a strategy, compared to another implementation of the same

strategy. Also, in hindsight the ecological validity of the implementation of commitment &

consistency was perhaps too low. The commitment that the participants made was not made

by themselves, but only suggested by the advertisement. This would also explain the bad

overall results for commitment & consistency.

Finally, as mentioned earlier the scores on personality traits were not spread in a way

to create large enough groups of participants with clearly distinguished high and low scores.

For that to occur, a flat distribution was needed, but the distribution was very much centered

around the mean. This was possible due to the fact that personality traits were treated as a

random factor. If not, the design would have become too complicated. But unfortunately, as a

result the distribution was not flat enough for more significant results.


41

Besides these limitations, the study also has its strengths. The design succeeded in

resembling a realistic scenario by evaluating different project descriptions and the materials

also resembled the real advertisements of Kiva Microfunds. This realistic setting strengthens

the external validity of the study, which in turn positively influences the generalizability. The

content of the advertisements was evaluated, to prevent other factors than the strategies to

influence the results. The measurement for attitude was very reliable and behavior was

measured in a realistic scenario. All these aspects positively influence the internal validity.

Besides that, the participants represented a good sample of the population. And finally, as an

explorative study, the results do not only provide many starting points for future research,

they also account for some initial new insight regarding consumer behavior and personalized

advertising.

5.3 Future research

As an explorative study, this study provides many angles for follow-up studies. One

possibility is substantially increasing the scale of this study, to find out if the trends that were

seen for several strategies yield significant results when data of a larger sample is available.

Also, future studies can investigate the effects of one or two persuasive strategies in more

depth. They can eliminate the limitation of the within-subject design by using a between-

subject design. This way participants review only one strategy and there is no influence of

project descriptions.

Other suggestions for future research are related to the implementations of the

strategies. The underlying reasons for the effectiveness of the strategies can be studied in

more depth by creating several implementations. Besides differences in effectiveness, future

studies can investigate the role of personality traits in the effectiveness of several

implementations. Perhaps it is not per se the strategy itself that interacts with a personality

trait, but a specific implementation.

Considering personality traits, future studies can replicate this study, but should make

some adjustments in the sample. The lack of two- and three-way interactions between the

personality traits, previous behavior and persuasive strategies might be caused by the

distribution of the participants' personality traits scores, which was not flat enough. As a

result, the groups representing high and low scores needed broadening, which most likely

reduced the effects. Future studies can either increase the sample or create another design, in

which high and low scores on certain personality traits are treated as independent variables

instead of random factors.


42

Finally, future studies can aim at replicating the results of this study for other forms of

contributing to social causes, other types of non-profit organizations or even profit

organizations. This would provide insight in the generalizability of the results. Future studies

can also focus on cultural differences in effectiveness and interactions with the strategies. Lee

(2006) proposed that enabling a greater e-commerce performance through reinforcing web

experience works quite the same across different nations, cultures and ethnic groups. If this is

true, that would mean that the results of this study would be generalizable across cultures,

nations and ethnic groups. However there are also cultural and religious values to consider

and they might account for differences. That is another interesting path to explore in follow-

up studies.

5.4 Conclusion and implications

The results of this study have led to new insight into the field of consumer behavior

and personalized advertising. Especially the findings about the role of past experience in the

effectiveness of certain personalized strategies in online advertisements contributes to the

existing body of research. The study also contributes to the knowledge about the role that

personality traits play in personalized advertising. Finally, the results provide an initial insight

in the effectiveness of personalization in the non-profit sector, about which not much was

known yet.

From a practical perspective, the findings provide several factors to keep in mind

when designing personalized advertisements in the non-profit sector of micro funding projects

and includes insight in which strategies match with those factors. In the end, tailoring the

advertisements to the characteristics of the target group can lead to an increased effectiveness

of marketing communication messages for non-profit organizations.


43

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48

Appendix A: Questionnaire

Introduction

Dear participant,

Welcome to this questionnaire.

For my master thesis, I am doing research about online advertisements for micro funding

projects. Micro funding is the act of lending a small amount of money to a person living in

poverty, to enable them to realize a specific project. Mostly they are small entrepreneurs in

need of financial means to make their business profitable. The financial transaction is dealt

with by a reputed organization and after a certain amount of time, your loan is paid back to

you. This study uses Kiva Microfunds as an example case.

This questionnaire consists of four blocks. After some introduction questions, you will be

asked to rate several statements regarding your opinion about different micro funding

projects. Secondly you are requested to distribute a (fictional, not real) amount of 100 dollars

over at least two of the projects. The third block includes questions about your personality.

Finally, in the last block you are asked for your demographic information.

The questionnaire will take about 10-20 minutes of your time. Your answers are processed

anonymously and are only used for the purpose of this study.

Thank you in advance for participating! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via

[email protected].

Kind regards,

Merel Sonnemans


49

Block 1

Have you ever contributed or donated to a non-profit organization or good cause?

o Yes

o No

[If the answer is 'yes' participants will see the next two questions]

You have indicated to have donated, contributed or micro funded a loan to a non-profit

organization. Please specify how you contributed (more than one answer possible):

I contributed to a charity organization

I contributed to a micro funding project

I contributed to another good cause, namely: ____________________

How was your experience with the donating, contributing or micro funding a loan to a non-

profit organization?

o Very Bad

o Bad

o Neither Good nor Bad

o Good

o Very Good

[If the answer is 'no' participants will see the next question]

Are you willing to contribute or donate to a non-profit organization or good cause in the

future?

o Yes

o No

[If the answer is 'yes' participants will see the next question. If the answer is 'no' they proceed to

Block 2]


50

You have indicated to be willing to donate or contribute to a non-profit organization or good

cause in the future. Please specify what type of contribution or donation you are willing to

make (more than one answer possible):

Contributing to a charity organization

Contributing to a micro funding project

Contributing in another way, namely: ____________________

Block 2

Please imagine that you have registered on Kiva.org with an account, and you are

now looking around for at least 2 projects to which you want to contribute a total of 100

dollars. After viewing five advertisement you are asked to which projects you want to

contribute to. You have to select at least 2 projects, but you can also choose to contribute to

more than 2 projects.

Remember to pay careful attention to the advertisements on the following pages,

which contain information about each individual micro funding project. Please pay careful

attention to all contents of the advertisement.

At the bottom of each advertisement, you are asked to evaluate each project on several

statements. You can spend as much time as you like to evaluate each project, before clicking

onto the next page. You cannot go back once you have clicked 'next'.

After evaluating all five advertisements, you are asked how you would like to distribute the

100 dollars.

Please click on ´next´ to start the evaluation of the advertisements.

(next page)


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[Advertisement of one of project 1]

Look at the advertisement and indicate for each of the seven words below the extent to which

you agree with the statement when it is completed with the word on the left or the word on the

right, by choosing one of the seven scale points.

For me, contributing to this specific project would be ...

(1) unpleasant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 pleasant

(2) bad 1 2 3 4 4 6 7 good

(3) negative 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 positive

(4) favorable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unfavorable

(5) wise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 foolish

(6) unenjoyable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 enjoyable

(7) satisfying 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 unsatisfying

Please indicate the extent in which you agree with the following statements:

(with 1 begin strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree)

(1) I like the way this project is presented to me 1 2 3 4 5

(2) This project is described convincingly 1 2 3 4 5

(3) The project description is written in an 1 2 3 4 5

appropriate tone

(4) I have read all the text in the advertisement, 1 2 3 4 5

looked at all the available information and numbers,

and considered the arguments.

(next page)


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(2) bad 1 2 3 4 4 6 7 good



(5) wise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 foolish








appropriate tone




(next page)


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(2) bad 1 2 3 4 4 6 7 good



(5) wise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 foolish








appropriate tone




(next page)


54







(2) bad 1 2 3 4 4 6 7 good



(5) wise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 foolish








appropriate tone




(next page)


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(2) bad 1 2 3 4 4 6 7 good



(5) wise 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 foolish








appropriate tone




Block 3

[Miniature images of all five advertisements at the top of the page]


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If you had 100 dollar to spend for micro funding projects, to which micro funding projects

that you have just seen and been reading information about, would you contribute? Please

indicate how much you would like to contribute to each project. You need to distribute the

money among at least 2 projects. Contributing to more than 2 is also possible.

$______ Project 1 (Franck Elvis)

$______ Project 2 (Oranci)

$______ Project 3 (Miriyam)

$______ Project 4 (Luz)

$______ Project 5 (Patrick)

[total amount must be 100 dollars to proceed]

Please indicate your motivation for this distribution: __________________

Block 4

The following section includes questions about how you see yourself. Please indicate to what

extent you agree with the following statements, using the following answering categories:

1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral (neither agree, nor disagree), 4 = agree, and

5 = strongly agree. Please choose the rating which most accurately describes you as you

generally are. All the answers are processed in complete confidence.

1. I can look at a painting for a long time

1 2 3 4 5

2. I make sure that things are in the right spot

1 2 3 4 5

3. I remain unfriendly to someone who was mean to me.

1 2 3 4 5


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4. Nobody likes talking with me.

1 2 3 4 5

5. I am afraid of feeling pain.

1 2 3 4 5

6. I find it difficult to lie.

1 2 3 4 5

7. I think science is boring.

1 2 3 4 5

8. I postpone complicated tasks as long as possible.

1 2 3 4 5

9. I often express criticism.

1 2 3 4 5

10. I easily approach strangers.

1 2 3 4 5

11. I worry less than others.

1 2 3 4 5

12. I would like to know how to make lots of money in a dishonest manner.

1 2 3 4 5

13. I have a lot of imagination.

1 2 3 4 5

14. I work very precisely.

1 2 3 4 5

15. I tend to quickly agree with others.

1 2 3 4 5

16. I like to talk with others.

1 2 3 4 5


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17. I can easily overcome difficulties on my own.

1 2 3 4 5

18. I want to be famous.

1 2 3 4 5

19. I like people with strange ideas.

1 2 3 4 5

20. I often do things without really thinking.

1 2 3 4 5

21. Even when I’m treated badly, I remain calm.

1 2 3 4 5

22. I am seldom cheerful.

1 2 3 4 5

23. I have to cry during sad or romantic movies.

1 2 3 4 5

24. I am entitled to special treatment.

1 2 3 4 5

Demographics

What is your gender?

o Male

o Female

What is your age? _________________


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What is your highest completed education?

o Primary education

o Secondary education

o College

o University (Bachelor's degree)

o University (Master's degree)

What is your nationality? _________________

We thank you for your time spent taking this survey.

Your response has been recorded.

(end of survey)


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Appendix B: Advertisements

Project 1 combined with reciprocity.


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Project 2 combined with social proof.


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Project 3 combined with commitment & consistency.


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Project 4 combined with sympathy.


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Project 5, neutral

personalized persuasion, attitude, behavior and personality traits in a non-profit e-commerce

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