Who helps whom in times of crisis? An investigation of actual donations to two groups of earthquake victims

Abstract

This pre-registered study assessed actual donations to two groups of victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February 2023 while considering various theoretically-relevant contextual and personality factors as determinants of donations. In a diverse German online sample (N = 496), most participants (62.9 %) donated something, and only few (24.0 %) were selective in their donations, donating more to one group of victims than to the other. Dispositional honesty-humility added to the prediction of donation behavior beyond contextual factors. Selective donations, however, were largely driven by (contextual) perceptions of need. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into donation behavior and highlight the importance of personality in understanding individual differences in donations.