Some charitable communications employ deprived beneficiary (DB) appeals (showcasing the distressing circumstances of suffering victims), while others feature satiated beneficiary (SB) appeals (depicting the improved state of victims after receiving help). We propose and demonstrate that the relative efficacy of these appeals depends on the perspective viewers are prompted to take. Across three incentive-compatible experiments, we demonstrate that while DB appeals are more effective in increasing donation behavior when an ad evokes a beneficiary-perspective (i.e., asking viewers to imagine how a beneficiary feels), SB appeals are more effective when an ad evokes a self-perspective (i.e., asking viewers to imagine how they themselves would feel if they were in the beneficiary’s position). We also provide evidence for the affect-based mechanism theorized to underlie this basic interaction, and proffer a managerially actionable, ad copy-based moderator.

一些慈善传播采用贫困受益人（DB）呼吁（展示受苦受难者的痛苦处境），而另一些则采用满足受益人（SB）呼吁（描述受害者在接受帮助后状况的改善）。我们提出并证明，这些诉求的相对效力取决于观众被提示采取的观点。通过三个激励相容的实验，我们证明，当广告唤起受益人视角（即要求观众想象受益人的感受）时，DB 呼吁在增加捐赠行为方面更有效，而当广告唤起受益人观点时，SB 呼吁更有效自我视角（即，要求观众想象如果他们处于受益人的位置，他们自己会有何感受）。我们还提供了基于情感的机制的证据，该机制理论上是这种基本互动的基础，并提供了一个管理上可行的、基于广告文案的调节器。