Communication: Content or relationship?

We investigate the effect of anonymous communication on generosity in a dictator game. One-way written communication from the recipient is compared with no communication. Communication increases donations by more than 70 percent (p < 0.05). To separate the effect of the content of the communication from the “relationship effect” of communication, a third treatment is carried out with one-way communication from third-parties (as messages from the recipients in the second treatment). In this third treatment, the donations are about 40 percent higher than in the treatment with no communication (p < 0.10), suggesting that the impersonal content of the communication affects donations.