People are often unwilling to dedicate their attention to social issues because they would most likely involve a certain amount of time, money and personal effort. Besides, it might create benefits to be shared with other who, however, probably ignore the social issues behind. In an effort to improve the attention to social issues, governments and public institutions employ financial instruments to campaign good behavior. Such use of financial instruments however is expensive and often ineffective.
This qualitative study investigates about the influence of anthropomorphism and time pressure on prosocial behavior (here: trash recycling) and examines whether the emotion of anticipated guilt plays a role in increasing prosocial behavior. The thesis suggests an inexpensive and effective tool to increase prosocial behavior. The stimuli applied in an experiment are manipulated in four scenarios (anthropomorphism vs. no-anthropomorphism and time pressure vs. no time pressure). Results of same are analyzed through the findings of a questionnaire completed by 100 respondents after the experiment. The results prove that anthropomorphizing products increases prosocial behavior. It furthermore reveals that time pressure does neither have a significant effect on negative emotions nor an additional effect on prosocial behavior. Surprisingly, results reveal that positive emotions are well evoked, do positively influence the effect of anthropomorphism on prosocial behavior and diminish under time pressure.