Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
We conduct a field experiment with the visitors of the German Catholic Convention in Münster, Germany. We aim to investigate the effect of the announced attitude of a Catholic institution concerning climate protection efforts, of the salience of people's religious identity and of the corresponding interaction on people's willingness to donate for climate protection. Our results suggest that the supporting signal by the Catholic institution substantially increases donations by about 56 % (from 0.95 € to 1.48 € per participant). This effect is mainly driven by more subjects donating, as the share of donators increases by 8 percentage points due to the signal (from 17 % to 25 %). We observe neither a direct effect of the salient religious identity nor an interaction of the salient identity with the institution's signal. Our results thus indicate that a Catholic authority can actually promote sustainable behavior. This effect seems not strengthened when people's religious identity is rendered salient or limited to the most religious people or religious people in their most religious state of mind.