The congruency between moral foundations and intentions to donate, self-reported donations, and actual donations to charity

- Individualizing intuitions predicted intentions to donate to outgroup members.
- Individualizing intuitions predicted self-reported and actual donations to charities.
- Binding intuitions predicted lower intentions to donate and lower donations overall.
- But binding intuitions predicted higher self-reported donations to medical research.
- Whether the charities benefit ingroups or outgroups may affect who donates to them.

We extend past research on the congruency between moral foundations and morally relevant outcomes to ingroup- and outgroup-focused charitable giving. We measured intentions to donate to outgroup members (begging EU-migrants) and self-reported donations to ingroup (medical research) and outgroup (international aid) charity organizations in a heterogeneous sample (N = 1008) and actual donations to ingroup (cancer treatment) and outgroup (hunger relief) organizations in two experimental studies (N = 126; N = 200). Individualizing intuitions predicted helping in general across self-report and behavioral data. Binding intuitions predicted higher donations to ingroup causes, lower donations to outgroup causes, and less intentions to donate to outgroup members in the self-report data, and they predicted lower donations overall in the behavioral data.