Is it the Doing, Asking, or Supporting? Understanding Social (Capital) Network Influences on Charitable Giving

• In Event: 294 - Regular Session. Social Capital and the Community

Abstract

This study examines social network influences on financial giving to charitable causes. We address critiques of extant social capital measures as a composite of social indicators – all of which may matter but in distinct ways – through a differentiation of social capital factors and a focus in particular on social networks. Data investigated are from the nationally representative Science of Generosity Survey 2010 (n=1,997). The analyses center on predictors of being a giver and investigate general social trust, religious participation, size of social network, and exposure to giving and solicitations to give within social networks. Findings indicate that social networks significantly predict likelihood of being a giver. In particular, we find that egos are especially likely to be donors when their primary alter donates. Three mechanisms of how social network influence appears to occur are identified as: mutual influence, alter influence, and observation alone. In the case of mutual influence, the key mechanism is agreeing with alter on important social and political matters. Alter influence is driven instead by similarity with ego. Observation alone – in the absence of alter asking ego to give or ego asking alter to give – is related to alter being religious, net of covariates.

Authors

• Patricia Snell Herzog, University of Arkansas

• Song Yang, University of Arkansas