Prosocial and financial incentives for biodiversity conservation: A field experiment using a smartphone app

Sasaki, Shusaku; Kubo, Takahiro; Kitano, Shodai

Ecological Economics, 2025, 230, 108506

Number of Access:295（2025-08-14 02:03 Counts）

Identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/11094/100395

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Title
Prosocial and financial incentives for biodiversity conservation: A field experiment using a smartphone app
Creator
NRID
1000020814586 1000020814586
researchmap permalink
ssasaki_econ ssasaki_econ
CreatorName
Sasaki, Shusaku
CreatorName
Kubo, Takahiro
CreatorName
Kitano, Shodai
Subject
Behavioral change
Behavioral economics
Citizen science
Conservation action
Public good
Description
Sasaki S., Kubo T., Kitano S. Prosocial and financial incentives for biodiversity conservation: A field experiment using a smartphone app. Ecological Economics 230, 108506 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108506.
Abstract
Ascertaining the number, type, and location of plant, insect, and animal species is essential for biodiversity conservation. However, it is difficult to comprehensively monitor the situation using only expert-led surveys, and therefore information voluntarily provided by citizens is helpful in determining species distribution. To effectively encourage citizens to share data, this study proposed a prosocial incentive that rewards providing species information with donations for endangered species conservation activities. We conducted a field experiment with users (N = 830) of a widely used Japanese smartphone app “biome” where they post species photos and measured the incentive's effect on their posting behavior. In addition, we measured the effect of a financial incentive that provides monetary rewards for posting species photos and compared the two incentives' effects. The analyses revealed that while the prosocial incentive did not increase the number of posts on average, it could influence the content of the posts, increasing the proportion of posts on rare species. In contrast, the financial incentive significantly increased the total number of posts and, in particular, the number of posts on less rare and invasive species. Our results indicate that the prosocial and financial incentives could stimulate different motivations and encourage different posting behaviors.
Publisher
Elsevier B.V.
Source Title
Ecological Economics
Volume (Issue)
230
Page
108506
Date of Issued
2025-04-01
Language
English
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/11094/100395
PISSN
09218009
Relation.isIdenticalTo
DOI (Publisher Version)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108506
Access Rights
open access
CopyRight
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Version of Record
Category
学術雑誌論文 Journal Article