Impact of emotions on donations to dog shelters

The Czech Republic and Slovakia are dealing with an unknown number of abandoned animals. The law clearly assigns the care of abandoned, stray and abused animals to the hands of the state and municipalities. Dog shelters replace this role, but their costs are not compensated from the state in any way, and they must find their own source of funding. Their communication with public is often emotional and may evoke strong good or bad feelings in potential donors. Thus, it will be useful to recognize which emotions may lead to changes in their attitudes and actions. We plan to conduct a lab experiment, which will help to identify whether positive or negative emotions are correlated with an increase (or a decrease) of willingness to financially help. We plan to differentiate between impact on one-time donations and on a soft commitment to repeatedly donate, which is similar to a partial adoption of an animal. Obtained insights may help dog shelters to nudge helping behavior by proper framing of their posts and messages. More generally, this project will contribute to our understanding of charitable behaviors where the recipients of donations are non-profit organizations dealing with animals and not people, and with the factors influencing the adoption of animals instead of standard one-time monetary gifts.