Scope Insensitivity in the Context of Donation Intentions and Actual Donations

Prior research on scope sensitivity conducted by Hsee and Rottenstreich (2004) has shown that when people rely on feeling, they are sensitive to the presence or absence of a stimulus, but are largely insensitive to further variations of scope. Alternatively, according to authors, when people rely on calculation, their sensitivity on scope variations is relatively higher. Nonetheless, there are certain significant limitations in the study regarding the method that has been used. In the present study, I have conducted the explicit research based on the method proposed by Hsee and Rottenreich, with a number of changes assigned reliability of the method. I found out that when participants are exposed to possibility of possessing money from winning a lottery and making donation out of those money – they donate less than in the situation where they only have to self-report on their hypothetical donating behavior. Moreover, the phenomenon of scope insensitivity is not appearing in the situation where participant has a chance to obtain real money in the lottery.