Martyrdom Effect

Pain and effort are two things we usually wish to avoid. When it comes to raising money for charity, however, people are surprisingly drawn to painful and effortful fundraisers such as charity marathons, spartan race or the ice bucket challenge. The face of popular fundraisers today are endurance-a-thons, the harder the fundraiser is the more compelled people are to get involved. People today are even enduring these marathons wearing ridiculous outfits and uncomfortable mascot suits just to make the experience a little more challenging. This is called the Martyrdom effect, where one who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause or principle (Olivola,C & Shafir,E, 2011). Making charitable giving reliant on a painful and effortful experience adds “meaningfulness” and symbolic value to the donation process and to the donation itself. As a result, people donate more when fundraising is both painful and effortful.

Research conducted by Christopher Olivola and Eldar Shafir compared people’s willingness to contribute to a charity fundraiser when the donation process is easy and enjoyable compared to painful and effortful. They conducted a serval experiments to replicate their results of the martyrdom effect. Their research proved that people were more willing to participate in painful–effortful events and give away their money to aid anonymous others that have been involved in human suffering such as disease, poverty and natural 

However, this idea for people to feel better if they run a marathon at the risk of potentially injuring themselves that people are more likely to donate larger amounts to the cause if the fundraising event is challenging. The question is then asked are these painful effortful fundraisers the most efficient means to improve welfare? Can we do better by participating in something good for a good cause and being helpful in the process. For example, tree planting and garbage cleaning challenges. 

I have personally found myself to be more inclined to donate more and participate in endurance fundraisers rather than charity picnics and high tea fundraisers. Funnily enough this weekend my mum and I are participating in the Campbelltown City Challenge Walk at the Australian Botanic Gardens. My mum and I are entered the 11km race walk because as my mum says, “there’s no point waking up for 6km”. Let’s hope I don’t pull a muscle…

References
Olivola,C & Shafir,E, 2011, The Martyrdom Effect: When Pain and Effort Increase Prosocial Contributions, Wiley Journal of Behavioural Decision Making, viewed 9 March 2019
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3613749/