Donation Reward Attractiveness (DRWA)

Abstract

The Donation Reward Attractiveness (DRWA) scale is a concise, three-item psychometric instrument developed by Tingting Fan, Leilei Gao, and Yael Steinhart (2020) to evaluate how appealing, interesting, and economically viable prospective backers perceive an incentive or reward offered within a reward-based crowdfunding campaign. As crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have transitioned from niche alternative financing conduits into mainstream vehicles for entrepreneurial funding and product pre-ordering, the operational mechanics of pledge incentives have become a primary focal point in consumer behavior, behavioral economics, and entrepreneurial psychology. The DRWA captures the subjective valuation of non-equity tangible or experiential incentives provided in exchange for financial contributions. Measured on an authentic seven-point unipolar Likert scale ranging from 1 (“Not at all”) to 7 (“Very much”), the instrument addresses three foundational facets of incentive appraisal: hedonic appeal (overall attractiveness), cognitive curiosity (interestingness), and transactional transaction utility (perceived value for money).

Across multiple empirical laboratory experiments and pretests in consumer research, the DRWA has exhibited robust psychometric properties, demonstrating high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α typically exceeding .85 to .91), clear unidimensionality via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and sound convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. By isolating the extrinsic reward valuation from intrinsic philanthropic motivations, the DRWA serves as an indispensable tool for experimental researchers assessing moderating effects, statistical mediation, and control baselines in digital fundraising environments. This article provides a comprehensive psychometric review of the DRWA, detailing its structural dimensionality, theoretical foundations, psychometric validation metrics, and practical administration protocols.

Keywords

Donation Reward Attractiveness, reward-based crowdfunding, consumer valuation, incentive structure, perceived value, transaction utility, hedonic consumption, consumer psychometrics, backer decision-making, Fan Gao Steinhart.

Authors

The Donation Reward Attractiveness scale was formulated and validated by an international team of scholars in marketing and consumer psychology:

• Tingting Fan: Associate Professor of Marketing at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, Shenzhen. Her research program investigates digital marketing, crowdfunding mechanisms, consumer financial decision-making, and quantitative marketing models.
• Leilei Gao: Professor of Marketing at the CUHK Business School, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her scholarship focuses on consumer psychology, behavioral decision theory, self-regulation, and prosocial behavior.
• Yael Steinhart: Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behavior at the Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University. Her expertise encompasses consumer responses to novel products, green marketing, prosocial motivations, and crowdfunding dynamics.

The scale was formally introduced in their seminal investigation into crowdfunding dynamics, titled “The Small Predicts Large Effect in Crowdfunding,” published in the Journal of Consumer Research (2020, Vol. 47, Iss. 4, pp. 544–565). Inquiries regarding the original empirical studies are traditionally directed through the institutional correspondence addresses of the corresponding authors at CUHK or Tel Aviv University.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Donation Reward Attractiveness (DRWA) scale is to provide a brief, methodologically rigorous, and highly sensitive metric for assessing consumer appraisals of tangible and intangible reward tiers in crowdfunding environments. Modern crowdfunding typically bifurcates into distinct models: equity-based, lending-based, purely philanthropic (donation-based), and reward-based crowdfunding. In reward-based crowdfunding, the consumer occupies an ambiguous psychological position situated at the intersection of a charitable donor and a transactional consumer. Backers often experience dual motivations: they wish to support an innovative project or creator altruistically, yet they also evaluate the concrete return on their financial pledge, which may manifest as a finished product, exclusive merchandise, early digital access, or public recognition.

Within this hybridized context, experimental researchers and campaign architects require a mechanism to measure whether a given reward offering successfully activates positive consumer valuations, or whether variation in backing behaviors is driven by extraneous factors such as campaign momentum, creator credibility, social proof, or goal proximity. The DRWA was explicitly designed to address this methodological need. In the foundational work of Fan, Gao, and Steinhart (2020), the scale functioned both as a validation check (ensuring that experimental stimuli across various pledge tiers maintained equivalent baseline appeal when testing structural features of crowdfunding appeals) and as a downstream mediator capturing changes in consumer willingness to participate.

Beyond academic laboratory experimentation, the DRWA possesses practical utility in entrepreneurial strategy and marketing research. Campaign creators frequently face the challenge of “reward tier optimization”—the process of determining optimal pledge-to-reward ratios. Implementing the DRWA allows project designers to run pre-launch pilot tests to evaluate prototype descriptions, reward package bundles, and early-bird pricing tiers. By deploying this three-item index, practitioners can discern whether low backing intention stems from disinterest in the core innovation itself or from an unappealing, poorly priced reward tier.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the DRWA is perceived reward attractiveness within an exchange or donation context. This construct represents a unidimensional, higher-order psychological evaluation reflecting a prospective backer’s overall favorable perception of an incentive offered in return for a designated monetary contribution. Although unidimensional in its latent factor structure, the construct synthesizes three interconnected psychological dimensions:

1. Hedonic and Aesthetic Valence (General Attractiveness)

Item 1 (“How attractive is the reward to you?”) taps into the affective, hedonic appraisal of the incentive. In consumer psychology, attractiveness captures an immediate, affective judgment of desirability. When an individual views a reward (such as a designer watch, an eco-friendly gadget, or a limited-edition art print), the initial affective reaction is governed by sensory appeal, emotional resonance, and subjective desire. This dimension reflects an intrinsic hedonic pull toward possessing or experiencing the reward, independent of its strict monetary cost.

2. Epistemic Curiosity and Cognitive Engagement (Interestingness)

Item 2 (“How interesting is the reward to you?”) measures the degree of epistemic curiosity, novelty, and intellectual engagement elicited by the incentive. Reward-based crowdfunding projects predominantly feature innovations, creative media, or idiosyncratic artisanal goods that are not yet accessible through traditional retail channels. Consequently, “interestingness” reflects the backer’s perception of distinctiveness, originality, and creative ingenuity. A reward might not be strictly utilitarian, but if it offers a novel experiential narrative or unique technological design, it secures high marks on epistemic intrigue.

3. Transaction Utility and Perceived Economic Value (Value for Money)

Item 3 (“How good of a value for money is the reward?”) grounds the appraisal in economic rationality and transaction utility theory. Reward-based crowdfunding requires individuals to commit financial resources in exchange for a promised reward delivered at an uncertain future date. Therefore, potential backers actively calculate the financial ratio between the capital pledged and the subjective acquisition utility of the product. This dimension captures whether the backer perceives the required pledge amount to be an equitable or advantageous bargain relative to the retail worth or intrinsic quality of the offered item.

Importantly, the DRWA conceptually isolates the *reward* from the *campaign creator* and the *campaign cause*. A consumer might exhibit deep admiration for a social mission (e.g., distributing clean water filters in developing regions) while simultaneously evaluating the offered physical backer perk (e.g., an uninspired branded bumper sticker) as low in DRWA. By delineating the evaluation of the quid-pro-quo incentive from broader prosocial sentiment, the DRWA ensures construct purity in consumer decision research.

Theoretical Framework

The DRWA scale is grounded in several converging psychological and microeconomic frameworks that govern backer decision-making, dual-process prosocial motivations, and consumer perceived value:

Transaction Utility Theory

According to Richard Thaler’s (1985) formulation of Transaction Utility Theory, consumer purchases consist of two utilities: acquisition utility (the value of the good obtained relative to its financial outlay) and transaction utility (the perceived merit, fairness, or “deal quality” of the financial exchange itself). In crowdfunding, backers rarely engage in pure altruism; instead, reward tiers represent structured economic transactions. Item 3 of the DRWA explicitly captures the transaction utility dimension, identifying whether a backer believes they are receiving an exceptional bargain, whereas Items 1 and 2 capture the acquisition utility derived from possessing a desirable and novel good.

Expectancy-Value Theory and Utilitarian-Hedonic Duality

Rooted in the expectancy-value models of motivation (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), behavioral intent is determined by the expectation that an action will yield specific outcomes and the subjective value assigned to those outcomes. Zeithaml (1988) and subsequent multidimensional value researchers (e.g., Sweeney & Soutar, 2001) demonstrated that consumer value comprises emotional, social, functional, and financial dimensions. The DRWA efficiently compresses these dimensions into a three-item composite that simultaneously gauges emotional desirability (attractiveness), epistemic interest (interestingness), and economic equity (value for money).

Dual-Motivation and Overjustification in Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding operates under a distinct dynamic where intrinsic motivations (altruistic support, warm-glow giving; Andreoni, 1990) clash or collaborate with extrinsic motivations (material rewards; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Under the overjustification effect, introducing extrinsic incentives can occasionally undermine intrinsic charitable impulses if the reward is perceived as trivial or inappropriate. Conversely, when rewards demonstrate high perceived attractiveness and value, extrinsic motives reinforce intrinsic support. Measuring reward attractiveness through the DRWA enables behavioral scientists to study how reward structures moderate the influence of social proof, funding goals, and campaign framing.

The “Small Predicts Large” Signaling Framework

In the specific context for which the DRWA was created, Fan, Gao, and Steinhart (2020) demonstrated that the presence of early, small pledges signals high prospective success, motivating later large contributions. Within this theoretical paradigm, the attractiveness of the reward tier must be controlled or measured to eliminate the rival hypothesis that differences in pledge distribution across tiers are merely an artifact of idiosyncratic reward pricing or varying aesthetic appeal across tier levels.

Validity

The DRWA scale has demonstrated substantial construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity across numerous experimental datasets:

Content and Face Validity

Content validity was established during initial instrument design through expert review by consumer psychology scholars. The items directly capture the core colloquial and technical aspects of reward appraisal: visual/emotional allure (“attractive”), cognitive stimulation (“interesting”), and financial feasibility (“value for money”). The wording is intentionally unipolar and universally applicable across diverse product categories, including consumer electronics, tabletop games, fashion, and charitable gift incentives.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is evidenced by strong correlations between the DRWA composite index and established measures of product interest, consumer purchase intentions, and willingness to pay (WTP). In empirical studies modeling consumer pledging decisions, regression analysis reveals that higher scores on the DRWA correlate significantly with:

• Backer behavioral intentions to support the campaign (β coefficients frequently ranging between .35 and .55, p < .001).
• Willingness to recommend the crowdfunding campaign via word-of-mouth or social media sharing (r > .45).
• Attitudes toward the brand or campaign sponsor (r > .50).

Average Variance Extracted (AVE) metrics calculated for the three-item construct routinely exceed the .50 benchmark (typically AVE > .70), demonstrating that the latent construct captures more variance than measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been rigorously confirmed using the Fornell-Larcker criterion and cross-loading assessments. The DRWA reliably diverges from conceptually related, yet distinct, constructs:

• Creator Credibility / Trustworthiness: Correlations between the DRWA and source credibility scales (e.g., expertise, trustworthiness) remain modest (r ≈ .25 to .35), confirming that evaluating the reward is distinct from evaluating the entrepreneur.
• Altruistic / Warm-Glow Motivation: Correlations with pure charitable intent or warm-glow feelings typically range from .15 to .28, proving that the scale captures the transactional incentive rather than the backer’s empathic concern for the cause.
• Campaign Likability: While general campaign likability correlates with DRWA (r ≈ .40 to .50), confirmatory factor modeling shows distinct latent factors, indicating respondents clearly separate campaign appreciation from reward utility.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Predictive validity was verified in Fan, Gao, and Steinhart (2020) and subsequent crowdfunding research. In experimental designs featuring realistic mock-up platforms replicating Kickstarter, the DRWA predicted real monetary allocations and binary pledging behavior. In mediation models, the scale successfully accounts for indirect effects of reward framing and pricing configurations on backer conversion rates.

Reliability

The DRWA scale demonstrates exceptional internal consistency across heterogeneous experimental conditions, samples, and product contexts:

Internal Consistency (Cronbach’s α and McDonald’s ω)

Across the experimental pretests and main studies reported in Fan, Gao, and Steinhart (2020), the scale consistently produced high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients:

• In pretests evaluating product-tier stimuli across diverse categories (e.g., innovative travel gear, smart accessories), Cronbach’s α values ranged between .85 and .91.
• In subsequent consumer laboratory studies examining moderation effects, composite reliability (McDonald’s ω) mirrored these results, consistently exceeding .87.
• Inter-item correlations among the three items are uniformly robust, typically falling between r = .65 and r = .80 (p < .001), indicating strong mutual association without redundancy.

Test-Retest Stability

Although consumer evaluations of crowdfunding rewards can be influenced by contextual cues (e.g., funding progress bars, remaining tier quantities), test-retest reliability across brief delay intervals (e.g., 48 to 72 hours) in stimulus calibration studies has shown intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) exceeding .80. This demonstrates that baseline individual evaluations of a reward’s intrinsic value remain remarkably stable over time when external platform cues are held constant.

Factor Analysis

Psychometric evaluation via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provides strong empirical support for a parsimonious, unidimensional measurement model:

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When subjecting the three items to principal axis factoring or principal component analysis (PCA) with unrotated solutions across experimental samples:

• A single dominant factor invariably emerges with an eigenvalue > 2.20, accounting for 74% to 83% of the total variance across datasets.
• Scree plot examinations consistently illustrate a sharp cliff after the first factor, with second eigenvalues consistently falling below 0.45.
• Standardized factor loadings across all three items load strongly onto the single latent factor, typically ranging from .82 to .94:
• Item 1 (Attractive): Standardized loading ≈ .88 – .93
• Item 2 (Interesting): Standardized loading ≈ .82 – .87
• Item 3 (Value for money): Standardized loading ≈ .84 – .90

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In structural equation modeling (SEM) contexts, a three-indicator model is mathematically just-identified (saturated, df = 0). When embedded within larger measurement models alongside related constructs (e.g., pledge intention, creator trust, project perceived risk), the single-factor DRWA structure demonstrates outstanding fit indices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): > .98
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): > .97
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): < .05 (90% CI [.000, .072])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): < .03

Alternative two-factor models (e.g., separating affective/epistemic appraisal from economic value) fail to yield statistically significant improvements in chi-square difference testing (Δχ²), corroborating the unidimensional nature of the construct.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structured technical characteristics of the Donation Reward Attractiveness scale are outlined below:

• Instrument Name: Donation Reward Attractiveness (DRWA) Scale
• Target Respondent Group: General adult consumer population, prospective crowdfunding backers, and online survey participants.
• Construct Measured: Overall perceived attractiveness, interestingness, and transaction value of an incentive offered in exchange for a pledge.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized online questionnaire (e.g., Qualtrics, Gorilla, MTurk, Prolific).
• Item Count: 3 items.
• Completion Time: Approximately 30 to 60 seconds.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much).
• Scoring and Index Calculation: All three items are positively worded (unipolar). No reverse scoring is necessary. The overall score is calculated as the unweighted arithmetic mean of the three items:

DRWA Index = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3

• Interpretation of Scores: Composite scores range from 1.00 to 7.00. Higher mean values represent greater overall perceived attractiveness, novelty, and financial value of the reward offering.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Donation Reward Attractiveness scale was developed and published in 2020 in the Journal of Consumer Research (Oxford University Press / Association for Consumer Research). As a published academic instrument, it is accessible for scholarly, non-commercial, and pedagogical research without royal fees or licensing payments, provided that proper formal academic attribution is given to Fan, Gao, and Steinhart (2020).

Researchers intending to modify the wording for unique commercial settings, or organizations planning to incorporate the scale into proprietary commercial software suites or commercial pre-launch analytics engines, should consult the permissions guidelines of the publisher (Oxford University Press) and respect the copyright held by the authors and the Journal of Consumer Research.

References

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• Fan, T., Gao, L., & Steinhart, Y. (2020). The small predicts large effect in crowdfunding. Journal of Consumer Research, 47(4), 544–565. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa028
• Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
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• Thaler, R. (1985). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 4(3), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.4.3.199
• Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 2–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298805200302

Items of the Scale