Warm-glow versus cold-prickle: a further experimental study of framing effects on free-riding

This paper examines the effects of positive and negative framing on coopera tion in voluntary public goods provision experiments in which subjects have different value orientations. The major finding of this experiment is that while there is a significant difference between the two framing conditions in terms of overall contribution rates, there is no significant difference for some subjects. In particular, the data strongly suggest that the negat ive framing has a most salient effect on the subjects who have individualis tic value orientation, whereas the negative framing has a rather insignific ant effect on the subjects who have cooperative value orientation. This sug gests that at least for some group, the behavioral asymmetry between the wa rm-glow of doing something good and cold-prickle of doing something bad may not he as significant as in the previous study of Andreoni (1995). (C) 200 0 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.