Paper Choices

Allen shares that “research by Maferima Toure-Tillery [co-author Lili Wang]. . . finds that people are more likely to engage in virtuous behavior when they make their selections on paper than when they are using a digital device. . . Their study, which was conducted in both the U.S. and China, shows that the effect extends to several types of virtuous behavior, from charitable giving to choosing educational reading material over page turners. ‘People are more virtuous on paper than on a digital device,’ Touré-Tillery explains. ‘And we find the reason for that is that they see what they do on paper as more real and thus as more consequential for how they think about themselves and for maintaining a positive image of themselves.’”

Susie Allen.  2022.  “We React Differently to Paper vs. Digital Requests.”  KelloggInsight, https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/paper-vs-digital-reques…