Making and unmaking cosmopolitans: An experimental test of the mediating role of emotions in international development appeals

Making and unmaking cosmopolitans an experimental test of the mediating role of emotions in international development appeals

Hudson, D. Laehn, N.S. Dasandi, N. & Hudson, J. 2019. Social Science Quarterly

In this article, we test whether emotions mediate the effect of international development appeals on cosmopolitanism and donation behavior. Methods. We design and conduct a lab experiment to test the impact of representations of global poverty on participants’ cosmopolitan sentiments and their likelihood to donate to development charities. We use multiple mediation analysis to test the intervening role of six emotional responses—anger, guilt, solidarity, hope, repulsion, and pity—as causal pathways to our two outcomes of interest: cosmopolitanism and donations. Results. Hope is the most consistent and powerful pathway through which appeals affect respondents’ sense of cosmopolitanism and willingness to donate.

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Making and Unmaking Cosmopolitans

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