Donor Dissonance 1

Running Head: DONOR DISSONANCE

"Donor Dissonance": Applying Cognitive Dissonance Theory

to Charitable Giving Behavior and Donor Relations

Mark Ward, Sr.

Clemson University

Abstract

Cognitive dissonance theory is often used in consumer research. This paper extends that work

into a consumer behavior that has received little attention, namely charitable giving. Can donors

feel "post-donation" dissonance just as consumers feel post-purchase dissonance? Such "donor

dissonance" may predict donor satisfaction and future giving. By identifying cognitive and

emotional items that create post-donation dissonance, nonprofits can craft appeals that preempt

later dissonance and send post-donation communications that provide post-decision

reassurances donors need.

Donor Dissonance 2

"Donor Dissonance": Applying Cognitive Dissonance Theory

to Charitable Giving Behavior and Donor Relations

Your nonprofit organization is active in direct-mail fundraising and decides to conduct a

test of personalized address labels sent to a representative sample of new prospects. To your

satisfaction, response rates are markedly higher than usual. Why? The theory of cognitive

dissonance suggests the mailing may have activated a powerful dynamic. The recipients had not

previously donated to your organization and might never have thought to do so. But the labels

were attractive and useful. Some recipients desired to keep them. Thus a dissonance was

aroused: Does simply keeping the labels constitute "taking" the items without "paying" for them?

Is one's character impugned by donating to a charity he/she does not support since the motive is

getting rather than giving? Of course, many recipients resolved their cognitive dissonance by

changing their attitudes about the labels ("I don't want them after all") or about keeping them

("It's not stealing since I received the labels unsolicited"). But the high response rate to the

mailing indicates that many prospects resolved their dissonance by changing their previously

indifferent attitude about supporting your organization.

This scenario illustrates not only the basic issues addressed by cognitive dissonance

theory but suggests the theory's potential applicability for analyzing consumer behavior in the

context of charitable giving. For nonprofit organizations, productive donor relations are vital

because these stakeholders are the financial lifeblood for educational, charitable, and religious

institutions and volunteer associations of all kinds. By identifying cognitive and emotional items

that can create "donor dissonance," nonprofits can craft appeals that may preempt dissonance

later. Further, cognitive dissonance theory's notion of "post-decision dissonance" predicts that

donors—especially those who provide what are, for them, substantial gifts—will require

Donor Dissonance 3

reassurance through post-donation communications that furnish a sense of "product satisfaction"

and offer evidence to confirm their donation decisions. In turn, such satisfaction may yield

higher rates of repeat donations and donor upgrades.

Yet in applying cognitive dissonance theory to charitable giving behavior, three

difficulties arise. First, the considerable research conducted from a dissonance perspective on

consumer behavior is largely concerned with purchases of actual durable goods. Can findings,

for example, on post-purchase dissonance (e.g., see Milliman & Decker, 1990; Menasco &

Hawkins, 1978; Hunt, 1970; Bell, 1967) be applied to "post-donation" dissonance?

Second, though cognitive dissonance has been a pivotal theory in social psychology since

its introduction some fifty years ago (Harmon-Jones & Mills, 1999), applications to consumer

research waned after the 1970s (Sweeney, Hausknect & Soutar, 2000, p. 370). Festinger's (1957)

original construct of cognitive dissonance was easy to describe but, for consumer researchers of

the 1960s and 70s, it proved difficult to quantify when computers and sophisticated inferential

statistics were not available. Thus consumer research from a dissonance perspective has been

intermittent over the past three decades. And third, while "The concept of cognitive dissonance

has been discussed widely in the consumer behavior literature, yet paradoxically, there [was] no

well established scale to measure it" (Sweeney et al., 2000, p. 369).

Nevertheless, the need for consumer research on "donor dissonance," as distinct from

consumer purchasing behavior in the commercial sector, is suggested by two facts: the sheer

amount of charitable giving as an economic activity and the fact that lagging donation rates

among young adults will likely become habitual as this demographic grows older. In 2006 an

estimated $295.02 billion was donated in the United States (Giving USA, 2007) to nearly 1.8

million charities, foundations, nonprofits, and churches (NCCS, 2007). Yet 1 in 4 Americans

donates less than $100 per year, including more than half of young adults aged 18 to 24

Donor Dissonance 4

(Freelanthropy, 2005). Since those who do not donate in their youth are less likely to begin doing

so as they mature (AAFRC, 2002, p. 67), studying factors that cause "donor dissonance" and

then ascertaining how this dissonance can be preempted or relieved will provide information

important to the future of the nonprofit sector.

In making the argument that cognitive dissonance theory is a fruitful perspective for

analyzing charitable giving behavior, this article will survey how the theory has historically been

applied in consumer research and what this research indicates regarding the characteristics of

post-purchase dissonance; will review a recent attempt to develop a scale for measuring such

dissonance; and will then explore whether the qualities that mark dissonance in retail consumers

may also be usefully investigated by surveying charitable donors. For example, do these donors

worry about whether or not they "needed" to donate or got the best "deal" for their charitable

dollars? Finally, this article will suggest how cognitive dissonance theory might inform the

efforts of nonprofit organizations to cultivate positive donor relations.

Consumer Research from a Dissonance Perspective

The theory of cognitive dissonance originated with Festinger (1957) who defined the

phenomenon as the mental distress individuals feel when they "find themselves doing things that

don't fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold"

(p. 4). Because "for some people, dissonance is an extremely painful and intolerable thing" (p.

266), they have an aversive drive to replace the dissonance with consonance. Thus Festinger

proposed three mechanisms at work in reducing dissonance:

1. Through selective exposure a person can associate with individuals and consult

information that reinforces existing beliefs and avoids disquieting opinions.

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2. The more that post-decision dissonance is heightened by the importance of the issue at

hand—and the longer the delay in deciding among equally appealing alternatives or the

greater the difficulty of reversing the decision—the more individuals will have a need for

reassurance.

3. Since behavior precedes attitude, Festinger believed, changes in attitudes are most likely

induced when a person acts on the minimal justification needed to prompt behaviors that

run counter to their beliefs. Rather than offering massive rewards or punishments,

lowering the stakes reduces the importance of the issue and minimizes uneasiness over

anticipation of post-decision dissonance.

What emerges is a four-step process in which (A) inconsistency in attitude or behavior (B)

creates dissonance which (C) prompts an attitude change that (D) reduces dissonance. As

mentioned above, Festinger's process model of cognitive dissonance continues to enjoy wide

support in social psychology. But why did it fall out of favor in consumer research? In a seminal

1976 critique, Cummings and Venkatesan asked: Were researchers measuring what they thought

they were measuring? They reviewed 23 studies conducted in the 1960s and 70s, and pointed out

that "By far the greatest amount of dissonance-related research in consumer behavior has used

attitude change as the dependent measure" (p. 303). Though researchers had questioned subjects

about their "level of conflict or worry about the 'rightness' of [their purchase] decision," it is "not

clear that these measures were tapping magnitude of dissonance" since no "theoretically relevant

and unambiguous measure of magnitude of dissonance aroused is used" (p. 304). Or as Griffin

(2006) explained, "When researchers find an attitude shift at point C, they automatically assume

that dissonance was built up at point B and is gone by point D" (p. 238, emphasis in original).

Donor Dissonance 6

To manipulate dissonance experimentally, researchers typically attempted to arouse

dissonance in subjects by inducing or forcing compliance through rewards or threats. But this led

to a second methodological difficulty for consumer behavior research from a dissonance

perspective, namely the artificiality of test conditions. Festinger's original theory proposed that

dissonance is related to the importance of a decision. Yet Cummings and Venkatesan (1976)

observed, "It is not clear, for example, in some studies whether subjects were given any choice"

in complying with test instructions or that choices were "made salient to the subjects"; further,

"the obviously role-playing situations in some studies necessarily reduce the importance of the

decision for the subjects" (p. 304). Even before the 1970s a number of scholars (Chapanis &

Chapanis, 1964; Janis & Gilmore, 1965; Oshikawa, 1969; Cohen & Goldberg, 1970) questioned

the validity of the forced-compliance methodology for measuring post-purchase cognitive

dissonance. "The settings of the experiments have been described as artificial, trivial, and

irrelevant to marketers, because consumers are rarely trapped in a situation of being forced to

buy a product or service" (Sweeney et al., 2000, p. 371).

Coming at the crest of this mounting criticism, the 1976 Cummings and Venkatesan

review delivered the coup de grace. The authors not only questioned whether consumer studies

of dissonance measured what they claimed, but characterized much of the research as failing to

"include the appropriate correction for regression"; failing to "meet prerequisite conditions for

producing dissonance"; neglecting to "shield against other modes of dissonance reduction";

"accepting null differences as support of the theory"; taking correlational evidence as causal; and

ignoring "compelling alternative explanations" (pp. 304–305).

Other methodological problems cited by Sweeney et al. (2000, pp. 371–372) include "ad

hoc paper-and-pencil measures of dissonance" that do not attempt scale validation or assess scale

reliability; measuring dissonance reduction rather than the dissonance itself; and gauging

Donor Dissonance 7

dissonance through behavioral or physical manifestations (such as galvanic skin reactions) rather

than, as in Festinger's original construct, psychological discomfort. Though Cummings and

Venkatesan (1976, p. 305) allowed that "none of the findings in this literature have presented a

major challenge to the validity of the theory, because of the methodological problems involved,"

they concluded that "no single study has provided evidence which conclusively supports the

application of dissonance theory to consumer behavior."

By the end of the 1970s many voices were decrying the general state of consumer

research. Jacoby (1978) declared, "What does it mean if a finding is significant or that the

ultimate in statistical analytical techniques have been applied, if the data collection instrument

generated invalid data at the outset?'' (pp. 90–91). He further lamented,

More stupefying than the sheer number of our measures is the ease with which they are

proposed and the uncritical manner in which they are accepted. In point of fact, most of

our measures are only measures because someone says that they are, not because they

have been shown to satisfy standard measurement criteria (validity, reliability, and

sensitivity). (p. 91)

Similarly, Gardner (1978, p. 1) noted, "When we talk about attitudes we are talking about

constructs of the mind as they are expressed in response to our questions. But usually all we

really know are the questions we ask and the answers we get." And as Churchill (1979)

observed,

Marketers, indeed, seem to be choking on their measures . . . They seem to spend much

effort and time operating by the routine which computer technicians refer to as GIGO—

Donor Dissonance 8

garbage in, garbage out. What accounts for this gap between the obvious need for better

measures and the lack of such measures? [My] basic thesis . . . is that although the desire

may be there, the know-how is not. The situation in marketing seems to parallel the

dilemma which psychologists faced more than 20 years ago (p. 64).

If Churchill's 1979 assertion is taken to mean that consumer research was 20 years away from

maturity, perhaps a resurrection of the cognitive dissonance theory perspective is timely. Oliver

(1997) expressed hope that "the construction, validation and dissemination of comprehensive

dissonance measures will be forthcoming" (p. 261), a sentiment echoed by Sweeney et al. (2000)

who argued that

this [1970s] reduction in interest was both inexplicable and unfortunate. The concept

needs to be further delineated and the relationships between cognitive dissonance and

other post-purchase constructs, such as consumer satisfaction and attributions, need to be

investigated. The time is ripe for a review of dissonance, a redefinition of the construct,

and the development of an operational measure. (p. 261)

Characteristics of Consumer Dissonance

Toward that end Sweeney et al. (2000) sought to develop a theoretically and

psychometrically valid scale for measuring consumers' cognitive dissonance immediately after a

purchase. But the team faced an unexpected initial challenge. They reviewed Festinger's theory

to derive a definition of dissonance but discovered that his "early explanation of dissonance did

not clearly identify whether dissonance is cognitive or emotional" (p. 373). In the end they

decided that cognitive and emotional aspects are implicated. For example, the cognitive

Donor Dissonance 9

dimension of dissonance is suggested by Festinger's (1957, p. 261) assertion that "the obverse of

one element follows from the other," while the emotional dimension is found in his observation

that dissonance can be "an extremely painful and intolerable thing" (p. 266).

Despite the theory's appellation as cognitive dissonance, scholars who followed after

Festinger have noted its psychological aspects. As Sweeney et al. (2000, p. 373) pointed out,

cognitive dissonance has been variously linked to psychological discomfort (Carlsmith &

Aronson, 1963; Elliot & Devine, 1994) or a psychologically uncomfortable state (Festinger,

1957; Menasco & Hawkins, 1978); with anxiety, uncertainty, or doubt (Menasco & Hawkins,

1978; Montgomery & Barnes, 1993; Mowen, 1995); with fears of unwanted consequences;

(Cooper & Fazio, 1984); and with anticipating regret from unknown outcomes (Oliver, 1997).

Post-purchase dissonance does not accompany all consumer decisions. It must be

aroused, and arousal follows upon three conditions (see Cummings & Venkatesan, 1976;

Korgaonkar & Moschis, 1982; Mowen, 1995; Oliver, 1997). Namely, the purchase decision in

question must be important, freely made, and irreversible. Dissonant thoughts and feelings

generate psychological discomfort that in turn motivates consumers to seek dissonance

reduction. But this reduction is not synonymous with product satisfaction. The literature (e.g.,

see Festinger, 1957; Insko & Schopler, 1972) defines dissonance as immediately post-decisional,

whereas product satisfaction allows expectations and performance to be compared after a

purchase is made and used. Thus satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) is founded upon known

outcomes, while dissonance generates apprehension about the unknown. Consumers can be

satisfied that a major purchase performs as expected but may still feel dissonant over the long-

term consequences for their financial wellbeing or quality of life.

Based on these descriptions and definitions of cognitive dissonance as it relates to

consumer research, Sweeney et al. (2000) sought to develop a scale for measuring dissonance

Donor Dissonance 10

after a product is purchased but before it is used or consumed. Thus, within their study "the

cognitive aspect [of dissonance] was defined as a person's recognition that beliefs are

inconsistent with a decision after the purchase has been made, while the emotional aspect was

defined as a person's psychological discomfort subsequent to the purchase decision" (pp. 374–

375). Through focus groups and surveys (respondents included college students, furniture store

customers, and car stereo purchasers) the Sweeney team ultimately discovered that cognitive

concerns largely clustered around two issues: Was this a wise purchase? Did I get a favorable

deal? However, emotional concerns—ranging from aggression and arousal to "negative"

pleasure—could all be plotted on a specific narrow band of Plutchik's (1980) circumplex of

emotions. Therefore, the team decided to ascribe emotion as a single dimension.

In the end, Sweeney et al. (2000, pp. 380–381) constructed a scale for measuring

dissonance that features 22 affective and cognitive items grouped in three dimensions:

• The emotional dimension is "a person's psychological discomfort subsequent to the

purchase decision." This dimension encompasses 15 affective items that measure

dissonance by whether the consumer bought a product and subsequently felt: despair,

resentment, self-disappointment, fear, hollowness, anger, unease, self-recrimination,

annoyance, frustration, pain, depression, self-loathing, sickness, and/or agony.

• The first cognitive dimension clusters around concerns regarding the wisdom of the

purchase, or "a person's recognition after the purchase has been made that they may

not have needed the product or may not have selected the appropriate one." Four

cognitive items are measured here as the consumer wonders if he/she "really needs

Donor Dissonance 11

this product," "should have bought anything at all," "made the right choice," and/or

"if I have done the right thing in buying this product."

• The second cognitive dimension clusters around concerns regarding the deal that the

consumer received, or "a person's recognition after the purchase has been made that

they may have been influenced against their own beliefs by sales staff." Dissonance is

gauged by three cognitive items—whether the purchaser wondered afterwards if "I'd

been fooled," "they had spun me a line," and/or "there was something wrong with the

deal I got."

The 22-item multidimensional scale was evaluated for its "criterion-related validity" or whether

it interacts with other external constructs in a predicted way. Sweeney et al. (2000) reasoned that

"high-dissonance" consumers would be less likely to perceive value in their purchases, less likely

to experience product satisfaction, and less able to evaluate product quality. The researchers

therefore selected from their consumer sample those high-dissonance customers who completed

their surveys before product delivery or installation. Upon analysis, all three of the predicted

relationships held up for furniture buyers and car stereo customers. Even the weakest relation—

between dissonance and perceived value—was statistically significant.

Looking for "Donor Dissonance"

Are the 22 cognitive and emotional items, identified by Sweeney et al. (2000) as sources

of post-purchase dissonance among commercial customers, applicable to charitable donation

decisions? In fact, nearly all the 22 items in the scale can be adapted by substituting the word

"donation" for "product." Yet potential difficulties arise with the two cognitive dimensions.

Donor Dissonance 12

First, the "wisdom of purchase" factor references the subject's "need." However, by

definition no consumer "needs" to make a charitable donation—unless "need" is very broadly

defined as a psychological need for self-actualization or cognitive need to operationalize one's

self-concept. If "wisdom of purchase" is defined by Sweeney et al. (2000) as "a person's

recognition after the purchase has been made that they may not have needed the product or may

not have selected the appropriate one" (p. 380), then perhaps an equivalent for "wisdom of

donation" is "a person's recognition after the donation has been made that they may have donated

out of their own psychological need or may not have selected the appropriate charity." Thus, the

first dissonance item in this dimension, "I wonder if I really need this product," instead becomes

"I wonder if I really made this donation out of my own psychological need."

Yet some subjects may be reluctant to answer honestly whether they acted out of their

own psychological need—and there is little use in asking a question that would generate minimal

or evasive responses. An alternate solution is to define "wisdom of donation" as "a person's

recognition after the donation has been made that the charity may not have needed the donation

or that the person may not have selected the appropriate charity." Thus the first dissonance item

in this dimension would be rendered, "I wonder if the charity really needs this donation." This is

presumably a question most subjects would be willing to answer.

Second, the "concern over deal" dimension may be problematic because donors are not

getting any "deal," unless "deal" is broadly construed as the degree to which a donor's charitable

dollars are effectively put to use by the nonprofit and thus afford greater "value" as compared to

other charitable uses. Here the Sweeney definition ("A person's recognition after the purchase

has been made that they may have been influenced against their own beliefs by sales staff")

holds up well in a charitable giving context when "purchase" is substituted with "donation" and

when "sales staff" is replaced by "the charity." Likewise, consumer concerns about being fooled

Donor Dissonance 13

or spun a line, are applicable to donation appeals. But the final dissonance item ("I wonder if

there was something wrong the deal I got") presents a challenge. A solution may be to modify

the item to consider whether a donor wonders "if there was something wrong with the charity," a

statement that implicates concern over how the donation will be used by the organization.

Thus the Sweeney et al. (2000) multidimensional scale, if modified to measure "donor

dissonance," might lead nonprofit executives and fundraisers to investigate the following

affective and cognitive concerns among their major donors:

Emotional: A person's psychological discomfort subsequent to the donation decision

After I made this donation: I was in despair I resented it I felt disappointed with myself I felt scared I felt hollow I felt angry I felt uneasy I felt I'd let myself down I felt annoyed I felt frustrated I was in pain I felt depressed I felt furious with myself I felt sick I was in agony

Wisdom of donation: A person's recognition after the donation has been made that the charity may not have needed the funds or that the person may not have selected the appropriate charity

I wonder: if the charity really needed this money if I should have donated anything at all if I have made the right choice of donation amount if I have done the right thing in making this donation

Donor Dissonance 14 Concern over decision: A person's recognition after the donation has been made that they may have been influenced against their own beliefs by the charity

After I bought this product I wondered: if I'd been fooled if they had spun me a line if there was something wrong with the charity

Even after constructing a donor questionnaire modeled on the Sweeney scale, two

additional barriers arise for the conduct of a survey: (1) Donors do not necessarily come to a

central location, such as a retail store, to make donations. How then would a questionnaire be

provided to donors immediately after they commit to making a donation? Most donations are

sent by mail and charities must promise not to make their donor lists available to third parties.

(2) Cognitive dissonance theory requires that a decision be important or, in the present context, a

charitable donation be a "major" gift. Yet "major donors" are conventionally defined as an elite

group. Why study a category of persons who are atypical of the general population and for whom

privacy—and thus access—is often a concern?

Answers to these challenges are suggested by considering the countervailing advantages

that a study of charitable giving would have, as compared to a study of retail consumer behavior.

Sending mail (or e-mail) surveys to donors has, in fact, some significant advantages over the in-

store method used by the Sweeney team to measure dissonance among retail customers. This is

because nonprofits whose lifeblood is direct-mail (or online) fundraising have sophisticated

computer records that segment active and lapsed donors according to giving history, source code

(i.e., to what appeals, carried in what media, has a donor responded), and postal code. Thus, a

representative sample of recent donors could easily be constructed.

The ease with which mailing lists can be segmented likewise addresses the problem of

"major donors." Simply stated, while "major donors" are conventionally defined by fundraisers

Donor Dissonance 15

as those who give very substantial sums, the theoretical thrust in any study of "donor dissonance"

would be donations which are "major" for the donor. As in the biblical story of the widow's

mite, a $100 gift could be a major donation for a college student or $500 a major contribution for

a single parent. Computerized giving histories allow nonprofit fundraisers to see if, for example,

a donor has recently made a significantly higher donation than past gifts, or if the donor's zip

code is associated with a certain lifestyle demographic or psychographic cluster.

Computerized records allow for the possibility of starting with a smaller exploratory

sample to obtain pilot data and then rolling out surveys to a larger sample with the selected traits.

Likewise, computerization permits the analyst to manipulate a number of potentially important

variables: Do first-time donors experience more dissonance than repeat donors? Is dissonance

related to the gap between present and previous donations? (That is, does a donor who previously

gave $10 and now gives $100 experience more dissonance than a donor who previously gave

$100 and now gives $150?) Do mail donors experience more dissonance than online donors? Is

there a relationship between dissonance and various elements within the particular appeal? (For

example, did the donor receive a "premium" or thank-you gift for donating at a certain level?)

Finally, a study of donor dissonance could explore whether givers to advocacy groups or

religious organizations, who presumably have ideological affinities with these groups,

experience less dissonance than donors to philanthropies and charities.

Samples could be drawn that allow for analyzing the effects of these variables. From

there, nonprofit fundraisers could follow the Sweeney method in providing postage-paid

envelopes and incentives for donors to fill out and return surveys within ten days. A variant or

addition to this method would be e-mail surveys sent to online donors, or donors whose e-mail

addresses have been captured. To check criterion-related validity, questionnaires could not ask

donors about their "product satisfaction" following "use" of their donation. But it would be

Donor Dissonance 16

entirely appropriate to ask donors: Do you perceive that your giving dollars provide "value" by

being used effectively? Did you experience satisfaction in the days after you made your

donation? Do you perceive that your donation is being used in a "quality" manner?

Chi-square tests (an easily performed type of statistical test) could demonstrate whether

statistically significant differences exist between the results obtained for different categories of

operationally defined donors (first-time versus repeat donors; "frequent" versus "infrequent"

donors; donors categorized by percentage increase from previous to present donation; donors

who received premiums in return for their donations versus those who did not; donors to

"ideological" versus "non-ideological" appeals).

Using a Dissonance Perspective to Improve Donor Relations

Measuring "donor dissonance" is clearly an inquiry that could be vital to nonprofits of all

persuasions. By identifying those cognitive and emotional items that tend to create in donors the

greatest post-donation dissonance, charities and nonprofits can craft fundraising appeals that may

preempt later dissonance and send post-donation communications that provide donors the

reassurance which Festinger's original theory suggests they may need after making a "major"

donation decision.

For example, if a nonprofit conducts a donor survey which demonstrates that donors feel

greater dissonance when making a sudden leap in the amounts of their gifts, then fundraising

executives could emphasize graduated giving levels in their appeals. If surveys suggests first-

time givers (or operationally defined "infrequent" givers) tend to experience more dissonance,

fundraisers can segment their mailing lists and craft differently-worded appeals to new prospects.

If surveys indicate that donor dissonance is reduced when givers receive premiums, then offering

such premiums becomes a strategy for enhancing donor satisfaction (and presumably increasing

the likelihood of future gifts). And if a survey shows donors to ideological or religious causes

Donor Dissonance 17

experience less dissonance, then leaders of charities and philanthropies can craft appeals that

stress shared values in addition to services and programs.

How consumers are "set up" before a transaction—and how that set-up affects their levels

of post-decision dissonance—are addressed in the literature. Menasco and Hawkins (1978)

studied the conditions under which consumers made purchases and discovered that "the greater

the level of difficulty of a decision, the greater is post-decision dissonance" so that dissonance

arousal is "a function of pre-decision conflict, which is in turn a result of difficulty of the

decision" (p. 651). For that reason, they advised that "Marketing strategy could concentrate on

reducing cognitive conflict prior to purchase" (p. 654), a strategy that presumably would also be

effective in the "marketing" of charitable appeals.

Korgaonkar and Moschis (1982) discovered, as predicted by Festinger's theory, an

important distinction between high and low ego-involving products. "The significant differences

in the consumer evaluations of high- vs. low-involvement products suggest that advertising

strategy should be different for the two situations" (p. 39). For low-involving products such as

soft drinks, understated advertising appeals and straightforward product descriptions reduced

post-purchase dissonance. Yet for high-involving products such as automobiles, the authors

concluded, research suggests that "the use of a promotional mix designed to create high

expectations" and "overstating the quality of an important product" leads to "a more favorable

evaluation [while] understatement contributes to a less favorable evaluation" (p. 38).

Charitable appeals can likewise be low-involving (as in direct-mail campaigns that

suggest "Your gift of just ten dollars will feed a needy child for three months") or high-involving

(as in capital campaigns that solicit major gifts, or development programs that seek bequests).

Thus dissonance research may indicate that straightforward and understated appeals could be

optimal for smaller gifts, while solicitation of large gifts may be optimized by appeals that create

Donor Dissonance 18

high expectations for the "quality" results that the charity will deliver through its use of donors'

dollars.

With respect to direct-mail fundraising, Furse & Stewart's (1984) research suggested

these communications should be conceptualized "as a series of responses to a set of stimuli rather

than a single decision to respond or not respond" (p. 79). For this reason, direct-mail fundraising

appeals are typically multi-page letters that provide potentially interested recipients with multiple

reasons to respond. Thus, direct-mailers who see their communications as multi-stage appeals

might (as in the opening example of personalized address labels) use cognitive dissonance to

their advantage, setting up sets of stimuli that prompt recipients to respond rather than risk the

dissonance which would accompany non-response. "The cognitive dissonance framework,"

affirmed Furse and Stewart (p. 91), "is capable of dealing with individual differences and has

demonstrable motivational properties."

As to dissonance reduction strategies after a decision is made, Cohen and Goldberg

(1970) may have stated the obvious by concluding, "The presence of a confirmation-

disconfirmation experience appears to be the overwhelming factor in the cognitive reevaluation

process. Subjects reevaluated positively when their choice was confirmed by the evidence and

negatively when their choice was disconfirmed" (p. 320). Yet in an early study of post-decision

communications and dissonance reduction, Hunt (1970) found that "subjects who received the

post-transaction letter experienced less dissonance, had more favorable attitudes toward the

store, and had higher intentions of future purchases" (p. 50, emphasis in original). Interestingly,

the effect was reversed for post-transaction telephone calls, possibly due to subjects' distrust of

calls from marketers and annoyance at receiving calls at home. Somewhat more recently,

Milliman and Decker (1990) found that post-purchase letters reduced dissonance, increased

product reorder rates, and reduced requests for refunds.

Donor Dissonance 19

Applied to charitable giving behavior and the phenomenon of "donor dissonance," this

research suggests that post-donation communications—especially thank-you letters or printed

newsletters that report on the organization's positive achievements—may provide donors a sense

of "product satisfaction" as they see their donation decision confirmed by evidence. In turn, this

satisfaction may yield higher rates of repeat donations and donor upgrades.

In summary, application of cognitive dissonance theory to charitable giving offers a

promising line for donor research. "Donor dissonance" appears to be a predictor of donor

satisfaction and future giving. And because habits of giving (or non-giving) established in early

adulthood often linger across later years, nonprofit fundraisers who can reduce donor dissonance

may be in a position to start building positive relations with their next generation of donors.

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