The too-much-choice effect has been identified in the literature in the context of consumption decisions, in which individuals find it a harder task to choose from large rather than small assortments, and are thus more likely to regret their choices or not make a choice at all in the former setup. Yet this effect is not universally observed in decision making. The expected effect on donation decisions is unclear. Donating can be a simple decision when people have well-defined preferences, but in other cases it can be complex if, for example, donors do not donate frequently. In order to clarify this question, we designed three distinct scenarios of the classic dictator game with charity recipients: one where the number of donation options is limited to just one charity; another where the number of available charities increases to six; and another one with twenty-four alternatives. For the scope of this study the too-much-choice effect would translate into lower individual donations or no donations as the number of recipient charities increases. The results show that the too-much-choice effect does not emerge when comparing the three scenarios. Finally, even if participants allocate more resources to charities when more donation options are available, individual charities on average, under those conditions, receive less.

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altruism,dictator game,charities,too-much-choice effect