Will information from astroturf organizations affect people’s trust toward overall nonprofit organizations and willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors? Astroturf organizations are defined as “fake grassroots organizations animated by a clever public relations campaign and a huge budget” (Hoggan and Littlemore 2009). In other words, an astroturf organization hides its true identity by using rhetorical language to convince the public. It can be inferred that large corporations sponsor astroturf organizations to employ deceptive and fraudulent tactics as propaganda. Prior research on astroturf organizations for climate change shows that people exposed to information from astroturf organizations denying global warming tend to become more uncertain about climate issues (e.g., causes of global warming or the existence of global warming) than people exposed to information from grassroots organizations (Cho et al. 2011). We propose that information from astroturf organizations may affect not only relevant issues or organizations, but also nonprofit organizations in general, which can then lower people's willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors (e.g., donations and volunteering). Darke and Ritchie (2007) found that deceptive advertisements engender distrust and undermine the trustworthiness of subsequent advertising. The process of defensive stereotyping can explain how initial deception activates general skepticism regarding advertising. Based on such an explanation, we suggest that exposure to astroturf organizations can make consumers more logically defensive and can decrease their trust toward messages from other nonprofit organizations. Therefore, we hypothesize that people who read messages from astroturf organizations will be more distrustful toward nonprofit organizations and will display lower willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors than people who read messages from grassroots organizations. To test this hypothesis, we conducted an experiment. We used a one-factor design with two levels of organization types (astroturf vs. grassroots). Participants (N = 72) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. Participants were told that they would read a message captured from a website of an organization (astroturf vs. grassroots) working on global warming. After viewing the advertisement, participants completed a questionnaire measuring their trust toward nonprofit organizations in general and willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. We assessed whether viewing the advertisement from the astroturf organization had an impact on participants' trust toward nonprofit organizations and their willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. An analysis of variance (ANOVA), with trust toward nonprofit organizations as the dependent variable and the type of organization as the independent variable, yielded a significant effect (F = 4.38, p < .05). The results showed that participants who viewed the advertisement from the astroturf organization were more likely to be distrustful of nonprofit organizations than those who viewed the advertisement from the grassroots organization (Mastroturf = 4.14, SD = 1.48 vs. Mgrassroots = 4.80, SD = 1.16). Thus, astroturf organizations may not only confuse people about a specific issue that the respective astroturf organizations aimed to attack, but they can also significantly weaken people's trust toward nonprofit organizations in general, which suggests severe detriment for the entire society. In addition, exposure to the message from an astroturf organization appeared to have an impact on people's willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors (F = 4.77, p < .05). To be specific, people who viewed the advertisement from the astroturf organization indicated that they were less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, compared to those who viewed the advertisement from the grassroots organization (Mastroturf = 3.11, SD = .63 vs. Mgrassroots = 3.48, SD = .77). Taken as a whole, this research suggests that messages from astroturf organizations can frequently engender people’s distrust toward nonprofit organizations and can lower their willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors. Our results extend prior research demonstrating that information from astroturf organizations affects people’s trust and certainty levels regarding one specific issue (Cho et al. 2011) and suggest that the effects of exposure to astroturf messages are not limited to a specific issue. Rather, the effects can be far-reaching and diverse, since such messages can evoke skepticism toward benign intentions and programs of nonprofit organizations. Given that the insidious use of astroturf organizations is growing in popularity, this research provides meaningful insights into the influence of fake grassroots organizations and can forewarn the public of their undesirable effects on the community.

• Jungyun Kang(Sungkyunkwan University)
• Hakkyun Kim(Sungkyunkwan University)
• Hosang Chu(Sungkyunkwan University)
• Charles H. Cho(ESSEC Business School)