Here’s a crazy idea, so crazy it’s genius or maybe it’s just crazy interesting.   I don’t know.  The idea: make the wearing of the “premium” schwag a requirement to give (time or money).  “What the hell did he just type?” I can hear the reader whisper.

I admit to having lingering questions about this idea and the study lending credence to it.  But, ignoring it because it’s too counter-intuitive is not very Agitator-like and generally seems like a bad idea.

Here are the field study basics.  It was for a blood drive done on a University.  The researchers divided the students into two conditions, controlling for all external influences (e.g. major, age, distance from blood center where blood drawn, gender).  The test and control groups got email messages sent through the University promoting the blood drive and recruiting volunteers.

• The control condition noted that all blood donors are given the option to wear a donor stamp (temporary, on the skin tattoo) to further promote campus awareness of the blood drive.
• The test condition said “We ask all blood donors to comply and wear this donor stamp to further promote campus awareness of this blood drive”.

Before revealing the results it’s worth asking why the obligatory/force em’ test would win.  What’s the reason to believe?

People want to feel good about themselves and look good to others.  Schwag that publicly signals your altruistic (donate) or civic act (e.g. donate blood, vote) might be seen by others as self-promotional.  This creates conflict for the doer – I don’t want my pure act of giving/doing to be seen as impure.

You might decide not to give or do at all because you are unwilling to do it without being able to ‘show it’ while, paradoxically, being unwilling to show it for fear it makes you look bad.

The obligatory requirement removes this internal struggle.

Here’s what happened.

Those are huge effect sizes, more than doubling the donate blood rate.  The researchers went on, as all good experiments do, to test the role of social image to affirm it’s the reason for the effect.   It is.  People who were less concerned about their image do not respond differently under the obligatory condition.  For those folks the consideration to do/give is not influenced by a desire to share their good acts with the public nor by a fear of how that public display might backfire.

But, there are likely other contributing factors here.  For example, this might create a social norm of “wearing the schwag” as the right thing to do.  It may also confer greater import to the cause by having this compliance requirement.  The thinking being that surely this is a legit, worthwhile and important ask if they require me to publicly promote it.

It’s very counterintuitive on lots of fronts.  Fight the urge to discount it or explain it away and instead, ask yourself what must be true for this to work for me organization?

Kevin