Status for the good guys: An experiment on charitable giving.

We study the social status motive in an experiment at an art‐house cinema in Germany where movie‐goers can make monetary contributions to help the cinema become climate neutral. Our key result is that offering high contributors a "social status gift" that displays their good deed increases both the likelihood of a high contribution and mean contributions. It performs significantly better than previously studied mechanisms, such as the removal of anonymity, the provision of a reference point, or a neutral thank‐you gift, and it also performs better than offering high contributors publicity through social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]