Facebook Furor And Fundraising
Of course the recent furor over the Facebook study on online behavior on its site shows there are limits to how much deception people will tolerate in the name of science.
But I fear all that knee-jerk, anti-Facebook reaction does us all a disservice by dampening scientific inquiry. And if any field of human endeavor needs more science, surely fundraising does.
You’ll recall a few weeks ago news surfaced that the social networking site carried out a study involving the tweaking of news feeds of nearly 700,000 users — containing updates, messages and photos from their Facebook friends — to make them either more positive or negative.
Facebook found that users exposed to fewer positive updates tended to be less positive in their own posts, and concluded that this constituted “experimental evidence for massive scale [emotional] contagion via social networks”.
“Deception!”, screamed the critics objecting to the process of collecting data without informed consent. “Creepy”, said others as they accused the researchers of treating innocent Facebook users as creatures in a digital petri dish.
“Nonsense!”, say I.
Let’s get real. A pinch of subterfuge is essential for this form of psychological research because folks change their behavior if they know they’re being watched. This is why much donor survey research and focus groups are worth so little in terms of being actionable.
And this is exactly why a set of ethical guidelines exist for this type of research. In the case of Facebook the guidelines were followed and the findings published in one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
And let’s not be naïve. Just as Walmart doesn’t primarily exist to make your life better, Facebook is really not your friend or buddy. It’s a multi-billion $$ behemoth that exists to monetize data. Consequently, it has a real interest in quality scientific research to find out why people use Facebook and how to get them to use more of it.
Frankly, I’m concerned that the Facebook furor will be used as one more excuse for fundraisers to avoid the type of scientific research we so desperately need. I can just hear the excuses flowing: “We don’t want to deceive donors” … ”We don’t have their permission or consent” … ”Let’s not rock the boat.”
And so we go on swapping folk tales and tribal wisdom, deceiving ourselves that somehow this mound of often conflicting myths represent ‘best practices’. Or, even worse, for the true ostriches or flat-earther’s among us, some suggest that the ‘why’ of behavior doesn’t matter — only that the red envelope beat the blue one, or was it the other way around?
There is no question that the scientific method for understanding and changing the world can be unsettling. Just as the scientific revolution in chemistry drove out the alchemists 200 years ago, and astronomers discovered and measured distant galaxies despite the protestations of Roman Catholic theologians and inquisitors, so too the fields of social sciences are today making important, new breakthroughs in our understanding of human behavior.
Of course all research needs to be conducted ethically, as was the case with Facebook, and reasonable people can disagree and debate the process all they want.
I for one prefer to practice my trade and live my life in a world guided by good science as opposed to one that relies on tribal wisdom, myth, and superstition.
What are your thoughts?
Roger
5 responses to “Facebook Furor And Fundraising”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Science? Gosh… You mean personal opinion and fact denying — like you’re kinda against that, Roger?
EVERYONE should read Chris Mooney’s article “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science.” In Mother Jones magazine, May/June 2011 issue. Ah yes…Too often the good old US of A, a “fact-free nation.”
Of course, not everything is science. And there are different truths. But some facts are facts and don’t depend on personal opinion and ostriches and flat-earthers and myth and and and!
What struck me most about this post is your fear that this outcry will cause nonprofits to be more reticent about using data and facts to their advantage. “We don’t want to deceive our donors” — every damn time I talk about appealing to donors on an emotional level, someone pops up with the naive concern that that’s manipulative. As if communicating with people in a manner that’s effective is unethical. As if their communications would become so all powerful that donors would be powerless to refuse them. As if!!!! So yes, I certainly share your concern.
I *love* that you are pushing back against all of the hysteria! Bravo!
I agree, Roger, with your pushing back against the hysterical reaction to the the disclosure of Facebook research, I agree there is altogether too little research — let alone quality research — behind fundraising.
But I don’t agree with your equating Facebook or Walmart or any commercial entity’s research with research nonprofit organizations need, nor with nonprofit organizations needing the type of research Facebook was conducting.
The difference is in the nature of the contract — formal or not — consumers have with companies and donors have with organizations. In commercial enterprise the buyer must beware and is truly naive to think the company is not going to attempt to exploit the relationship. But the nonprofit organization’s relationship with its donors demands trustworthiness and equates boundaries of research to boundaries of giving with this simple axiom: if you want something, you have to ask (and it helps a lot to explain why or what for).
I’m not sure on what basis the previous poster draws the conclusion that
for-profit is manipulative and exploitative. That sounds like rhetoric that may have been useful to organize labor in the 70’s but to suggest that is reality today (if ever) is farcical at best.
We know from our work that the underlying dimensions of a healthy relationship can be measured with survey research. These dimensions are both known and stable across political, consumer and donor markets in the US and abroad. In short, universal. These dimensions include satisfaction (i.e. customer and donor), fidelity, commitment and yes, trust. Based on extensive work in all 3 markets – political, consumer and donor – we know that organizations (regardless of IRS designation or how the mission statement is worded) benefit financially when they increase satisfaction, fidelity, commitment and yes, trust. From our personal experience, the vast majority of organizations – for profit and non-profit – covet strong relationships even if the vast majority are lousy at achieving it. This poor performance however, has nothing to do with malice or other bad intentions.
To suggest the non-profit world needs a different kind of research is to preserve much of the status quo thinking that has resulted in the sector achieving zero growth (relative to share of GDP) since the 70’s.
To the point about the specific type of research done by Facebook I think it is worth considering the countless number of in-market A/B testing done by countless charities today.
These tests include a test group, a control and a treatment protocol. This is the same methodology and verbiage used in medical research (though their work is more rigorous with double blind protocols, etc..), by countless academics across all fields and yes, Facebook.
This is testing done, unbeknownst to the donors, with the sole purpose of trying to determine how best to influence behavior. This is precisely what Facebook did. In fact, Facebook does have a “terms & conditions” provision as a part of account setup and while it is well documented nobody reads these T&C’s they are providing more transparency than any nonprofit when it comes to such testing. So, if anybody is coming close to an “ask” for this sort of research it is Facebook, not the non-profit sector.
For the record, I see zero ethical issue with the A/B testing done by non-profits today. What I do see however, is really bad research being done on a routine basis in non-profit and for profit. The definition of what is bad and good does not change however based on sector. The good/bad line is also not a subjective judgment, it is based on whether social science methodological protocols are adhered to or not and since most practitioners doing nonprofit and for profit research are not well grounded in these methodologies and have near zero domain expertise the clients and the people they serve (donors, beneficiaries, customers) are ultimately the ones being done the disservice.