Article

The ‘Identified Victim’ Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual?

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Abstract

People's greater willingness to help identified victims, relative to non-identified ones, was examined by varying the singularity of the victim (single vs. a group of eight individuals), and the availability of individually identifying information (the main difference being the inclusion of a picture in the “identified” versions). Results support the proposal that the “identified victim” effect is largely restricted to situations with a single victim: the identified single victim elicited considerably more contributions than the non-identified single victim, while the identification of the individual group members had essentially no effect on willingness to contribute. Participants also report experiencing distress when the victim is single and identified more than in any other condition. Hence, the emotional reaction to the victims appears to be a major source of the effect. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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... Recipients, who ultimately receive financial assistance from a donation-based crowdfunding program (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Small and Simonsohn 2008), can be categorized into individual recipients and group recipients (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Smith, Faro, and Burson 2013). Existing research suggests people process individual-related information faster than group-related information because an individual is perceived as a psychologically coherent unit compared to a group of people (Kogut and Ritov 2005). ...
... Recipients, who ultimately receive financial assistance from a donation-based crowdfunding program (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Small and Simonsohn 2008), can be categorized into individual recipients and group recipients (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Smith, Faro, and Burson 2013). Existing research suggests people process individual-related information faster than group-related information because an individual is perceived as a psychologically coherent unit compared to a group of people (Kogut and Ritov 2005). ...
... Recipients, who ultimately receive financial assistance from a donation-based crowdfunding program (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Small and Simonsohn 2008), can be categorized into individual recipients and group recipients (Kogut and Ritov 2005;Smith, Faro, and Burson 2013). Existing research suggests people process individual-related information faster than group-related information because an individual is perceived as a psychologically coherent unit compared to a group of people (Kogut and Ritov 2005). Thus, in the donation context, people quickly and emotionally process the information about individual recipients, whereas they deliberately process the information about a group of victims (Dickert, Sagara, and Slovic 2011;Kogut and Ritov 2005;Smith, Faro, and Burson 2013). ...
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Donation‐based crowdfunding platforms have increasingly applied disclosure strategies to encourage potential donors to contribute. However, most existing research has not studied the efficacy of showing donors' information by considering the tie strength between the disclosed donors and potential donors. This research was intended to investigate the interactive effects of disclosing donors' information and the tie strength between disclosed and potential donors on potential donors' donation amounts, employing the conceptual frameworks of the we‐mode and I‐mode. Through three online between‐subject experiments (Ntotal = 801), we found that when there was a strong tie between disclosed and potential donors, the disclosure of donors' information led to a decrease in potential donors' donation amounts. The propensity to co‐represent contribution (i.e., the extent to which potential donors take into account the contributions from disclosed donors along with their own as a joint contribution to a donation‐based crowdfunding project) drove the process. Moreover, we also confirmed the boundary condition of recipient type. When the recipient was a group (vs. individual), the negative effect of the propensity to co‐represent contribution on the donation amount was reversed, resulting in the disclosure of donation information from strong‐tie contacts boosting the donation amounts of potential donors. The results challenged the intuition that disclosing social information always increased individuals' donation amounts and complemented the empirical evidence of the negative impact of social information disclosure.
... The identified victim effect 1 refers to a heightened willingness to contribute to victims whose identities are clearer, presented with details such as their first name or a picture. Kogut and Ritov (2005a) investigated the boundary conditions and the mechanisms underlying the identified victim effect by examining varying group sizes and identifiability. They found that the identified victim effect was stronger on both willingness-to-contribute and empathic emotions (e.g., distress) when the target of contribution was a single individual than when the target was a group of victims. ...
... We sought to revisit this classic finding and re-examine the conditions which encourage or discourage helping intention. We report an independent close replication of the identified single victim effect demonstrated in Kogut and Ritov (2005a) Study 2 along with two extensions, testing the effect of group belonging as a conceptual replication of Kogut and Ritov (2007) and examining perceived responsibility (Erlandsson et al., 2015). ...
... We begin with a brief literature review on the identified victim effect, with sub-factors of identifiability and singularity, as impacting charitable giving. We then discuss our motivations for the current replication and review Kogut and Ritov (2005a) as our chosen article. We then outline our chosen studies for replication from the target article, the target's experimental design, and our adaptations and extensions. ...
Article
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The identified victim effect is the phenomenon in which people tend to contribute more to identified than to unidentified victims. Kogut and Ritov (2005a) found that the identified victim effect was limited to a single victim and driven by empathic emotions. In a pre-registered experiment with an online U.S. American MTurk sample on CloudResearch (N = 2003), we conducted a close replication and extension of Experiment 2 from Kogut and Ritov (2005a). The replication findings failed to provide empirical support for the identified single victim effect hypothesis since we found no evidence of differences in willingness to contribute when comparing a single identified victim to a single unidentified victim. (η2p = .00, 90% CI [0.00, 0.00]), and no indication for the target article’s interaction between singularity and identifiability (original: η2p = .062, 90% CI [0.01, 0.15]; replication: η2p = .00, 90% CI [0.00, 0.00]). Extending the replication to conduct a conceptual replication of Kogut and Ritov (2007), we investigated a boundary condition of the effect - group belonging. We found support for an ingroup bias in helping behaviors and indications for empathic emotions and perceived responsibility contributing to this effect. We discuss differences between our study and the target article and implications for the literature on the identified victim effect.
... The effects of assigning unique features to a subject, such as a name, age, or photo, also known as identifiability, have been the focus of numerous studies in social psychology. Perhaps the most fruitful line of research concerns the identifiable victim effect (IVE; e.g., Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Slovik, 2007; for a meta-analytic review, see Lee & Feeley, 2016). The IVE consists of an increased willingness to help a single identified victim compared to anonymous or statistical victims. ...
... The IVE consists of an increased willingness to help a single identified victim compared to anonymous or statistical victims. Importantly, the IVE has been found both with human (e.g., Kogut & Ritov, 2005) and animal targets (Cohen Ben-Arye & Halali, 2024;Markowitz et al., 2013, cf. Gradidge Running head: THE EFFECT OF IDENTIFIABILITY 5 et al., 2020. ...
... One factor that increases psychological closeness is the emotional arousal evoked by a given target (Van Boven et al., 2010). Importantly, emotional arousal is a major factor in producing the IVE (Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Slovik, 2007). Kogut and Ritov (2005) showed, for example, that identifiability (vs. ...
... In such cases, if products from a certain brand are recalled, these consumers may receive the news more quickly and take appropriate actions, such as not purchasing products from that brand or promptly checking whether they have consumed the recalled products. If consumers have not experienced similar incidents, they may lack sufficient awareness and vigilance regarding food safety issues and may even ignore recall information (63,64). This difference may be attributed to the "Bystander effect, " as exemplified by the parable of the "Good Samaritan" in Christian culture and the Chinese proverb "It's none of my business" (65,66). ...
... By contrast, consumers without such experiences showed no clear preferences; they said that how they handled the recalled unsafe food was of little concern to them and that the manner in which they communicated the recall handling information made little difference, as they would not care (insignificant standard deviation). These results were consistent with those of previous studies (62)(63)(64). This difference may be attributed to the "Bystander effect." ...
Article
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Introduction Information disclosure is important in promoting unsafe food recalls and reducing potential food safety risks. However, the governance of unsafe food recall information in China is distorted, leading to cognitive dissonance in Chinese consumers’ perceptions of unsafe food recall information. Focusing on consumers’ search and cognitive costs, this study suggests that market regulators should proactively and fully disclose unsafe food recall information to satisfy consumers’ needs and preferences for recall information, thereby optimizing consumer perceptions and facilitating the improvement of the information governance system for unsafe food recalls. Methods This study administered a survey via a discrete choice experiment to obtain data from 1,010 consumers in China and employed multiple linear regression (MLR) to analyze the overall cognition and preferences of consumers regarding food recall information and identify differences in cognition and preferences regarding unsafe food recall information. Results Chinese consumers experience cognitive dissonance regarding food recall information, and their utility can be improved through disclosure. They expressed preferences for recall information about food shops and distribution markets, more visualized hazard content, and new media presentations. Those who had purchased unsafe food, families with pregnant women or children, and those with more education were more concerned about recall information. Consumers’ information preferences also show a bystander mentality; however, consumers with higher educational levels are more altruistic. Discussion The results suggest that personalized, intuitive, and cognitively matched recall information can reduce consumers’ search and cognitive costs and increase their utility. This finding provides a reference and practical basis for establishing a food safety information governance system in China.
... Naming the medical professional could increase the perceived warmth of the medical professional relative to anonymity, too. Disclosing one's name to people unlocks a new level of connection (Charness & Gneezy, 2008;Kogut & Ritov, 2005). For example, naming a victim increased people's empathy and intention to donate (Kogut & Ritov, 2005), and trust game players entrusted more money to a named partner than to an anonymous one (Charness & Gneezy, 2008). ...
... Disclosing one's name to people unlocks a new level of connection (Charness & Gneezy, 2008;Kogut & Ritov, 2005). For example, naming a victim increased people's empathy and intention to donate (Kogut & Ritov, 2005), and trust game players entrusted more money to a named partner than to an anonymous one (Charness & Gneezy, 2008). In addition, research on in-group preference (Tajfel, 1982) shows that people trust in-group members more than out-group members (Balliet et al., 2014). ...
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Objetivo: Nuestro objetivo es identificar invitaciones de vacunación que fomenten la confianza y mejoren la aceptación de la vacunación en general, especialmente entre los grupos étnicos minoritarios que corren mayor riesgo de contraer COVID y tienen menos probabilidades de vacunarse. Métodos: En un experimento de diseño mixto 4 × 4 pre registrado, manipulamos cuánta información riesgo-beneficio incluida el mensaje dentro de los sujetos y la fuente del mensaje entre sujetos (N = 4,038 participantes del Reino Unido y EE. UU., 50 % de minoría étnica). Los participantes leyeron cuatro invitaciones a vacunas que variaban en la información riesgo-beneficio de la vacunación (orden aleatorio): Control (sin información), Solo beneficios, Riesgo y beneficio, y Riesgo y beneficio que menciona a grupos vulnerables. Los mensajes fueron enviados por una de cuatro fuentes (asignación aleatoria): Control (institución de salud: NHS/CVS), Profesional médico (no nombrado), Profesional médico cálido y competente (no nombrado) y Profesional médico cálido y competente designado (Sanjay/Lamar). Los participantes evaluaron cuánto confiaban en el mensaje y qué probabilidades tendrían de programar su cita de vacunación. Resultados: La información sobre los beneficios y riesgos de la vacunación aumentó la confianza, especialmente entre los grupos étnicos minoritarios, para quienes el efecto se replicó dentro de cada grupo. La confianza también aumentó cuando el mensaje fue enviado por un profesional médico cálido y competente en relación con una institución de salud, pero la importancia de la fuente importó menos cuando se compartió más información. Conclusiones: Nuestra investigación demuestra el impacto positivo de describir los beneficios y revelar los riesgos de las vacunas COVID en los mensajes de invitación a la vacunación. Tener una fuente profesional médica cálida y competente también puede aumentar la confianza, especialmente cuando el mensaje tiene un rango limitado.
... where research suggests that charitable helping decreases with the number of people in need because emotional responses (i.e., compassion or distress) to groups of people are weaker than to individuals (Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Västfjäll et al., 2014). However, this singularity effect (Kogut & Ritov, 2005) was also identified to relate to higher blame attributions decreasing helping intentions (Kogut, 2011). ...
... where research suggests that charitable helping decreases with the number of people in need because emotional responses (i.e., compassion or distress) to groups of people are weaker than to individuals (Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Västfjäll et al., 2014). However, this singularity effect (Kogut & Ritov, 2005) was also identified to relate to higher blame attributions decreasing helping intentions (Kogut, 2011). Thus, it would be worthwhile to test the DUPA model ) -including the remaining mediator outcome expectancy -in relation to the identifiable victim effect to assess (a) the singularity effect on outcome expectancy and (b) the relative impact of this effect on the relations in the DUPA model. ...
Article
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Poverty remains a pressing problem, with social support playing a crucial role in its reduction. Drawing on previous research on health‐related mindsets, we propose that a growth mindset of poverty – that is, believing poverty can be changed – can have both positive and negative effects on helping intentions through increased outcome expectancy and blame, respectively. In three experiments, we found that a growth mindset of poverty is associated with increased outcome expectancy and blame, which, in parallel, mediate the relationship between mindsets and helping intentions. However, these contrary indirect effects negate each other, yielding a total null effect. Further, manipulating the relationship between mindset and outcome expectancy (but not blame) alters the relationship between mindset and helping intentions (Studies 2 and 3). By shedding light on the circumstances under which mindsets of poverty can diminish or amplify helping intentions, our research offers valuable insights for practitioners and charities dedicated to combating poverty.
... Subsequent research has refined the scope and conditions of the IVE, examining factors such as the number of victims and the nature of their predicament. For instance, Kogut and Ritov (2005) found that when the identifiable victims were a group (eight people), the effect of IVE significantly decreased. Although evidence suggests that IVE is not always effective (Dickert et al. 2011), Lee and Feeley's (2016) meta-analysis of IVE studies showed that the effect is generally significant, albeit with a small effect size (r = 0.05). ...
Article
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Seeking to understand how Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) can optimize their message design in social media, this study explores the impact of two narrative strategies on multiple levels of audience engagement. With many studies in charity appeals on how to better design the message, limited research was conducted regarding messaging strategies on social media. To fill these gaps, we investigate the effects of the narratives, including social media narrative medium (videos, posters, posts) and narrative mode (personalized narrative), on different engagement levels. A scenario-based experiment method was adopted. The results show that personalized narratives significantly affect short-term behavioral intention (information-related behavior and one-time donation). In contrast, the narrative medium does not have a significant effect on both short-term and long-term behavior (green behavior and volunteering). This research contributes to the message-level literature on ENGO social media communication and provides practical implications for ENGOs in terms of crafting messages.
... However, Griffin et al. [41] highlighted several limitations in the application of empathy to improve conservation actions. Specifically, it has been shown that levels of empathy are higher when the number of suffering individuals is small and does not encompass large percentages of the population [45][46][47][48][49]. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that people exhibit greater empathy when they perceive elements of similarity or have familial connections with others (e.g., nationality, gender, etc.) [50,51]. ...
Article
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Numerous studies have demonstrated that empathy and compassion are significant predictors of pro-environmental and sustainable behaviors. Nevertheless, these studies do not clarify how the relationship between empathy and compassion and consequent pro-social behavior develops. How can feeling the emotion of nature’s suffering move compassion and activate behaviors that support the environment? This study aimed to verify whether self-compassion could act as a mediator in the relationship between empathy with nature and compassion, which in turn is associated with pro-environmental behaviors. A serial mediation model was analyzed on a sample of N = 1213 individuals. The results showed that women had higher levels of empathy with nature, compassion, uncompassionate behaviors toward themselves, and pro-environmental behaviors than males. Furthermore, the serial mediation model was confirmed, demonstrating that our initial hypotheses were supported. Self-compassion and compassion served as partial mediators in the relationship between empathy with nature and pro-environmental behaviors. Additionally, we observed the direct effects of both empathy and self-compassion on pro-environmental behaviors. The findings suggest that fostering self-compassion and compassion through targeted interventions may enhance individuals’ pro-environmental behaviors, especially by leveraging their empathetic connection with nature. Clinicians and educators could integrate self-compassion training into programs aimed at promoting environmental sustainability.
... Thus, the pool refilled to 100 units."). Since identifying information, even if minimal 72 , tends to increase prosocial behavior [73][74][75][76][77] , we decided to focus on the behavior of the first three generations and preregistered this plan (link: https://aspredicted.org/1XB_FWB). ...
Preprint
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Intergenerational cooperation is essential for addressing humanity's most pressing challenges, including climate change. Unlike single-period social dilemmas, intergenerational dilemmas lack key mechanisms that facilitate cooperation, such as reciprocity and third-party punishment, or compensate for its absence, such as formal compliance mechanisms. A promising approach is the implementation of a commitment mechanism, allowing the current generation to bind future generations to continue collaborating. In this study, we experimentally examine the behavioral aspects of such mechanisms and find widespread endorsement for their use, despite associated costs. This reflects "long-sighted altruism," where individuals forego personal gain to benefit not just the next generation but also more distant ones. Commitment mechanisms enhance intergenerational sustainability, increasing the proportion of chains that preserve the common pool across generations. Finally, these mechanisms exhibit persistence, as future generations tend to continue using them. These results have important implications for policymakers exploring ways to make climate policies more credible.
... This decline in response as the number of people at risk increases is also documented in controlled experiments. A study in Israel by Kogut and Ritov (2005a) illustrates the decline in the value of lives even with small increases in number. They showed a picture of eight children in need of $300,000 for cancer treatment, and people were asked to donate money to help them. ...
Article
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The heart of prospect theory is the value function, proposing that the carriers of value are positive or negative changes from a reference point. Daniel Kahneman observed that if prospect theory had a flag, the value function would be drawn on it. The function is nonlinear, reflecting diminishing sensitivity to magnitude. When describing how human lives are valued, the function exposes profound incoherence. An individual life is highly valued and thus vigorously protected if it is the only life at risk. But that life loses its value when it is one of many endangered by a larger tragedy. Beyond this insensitivity, the function may actually decline when many lives at risk become mere numbers. The more who die, the less we care. Implications of this deadly ‘arithmetic of compassion’ for understanding and managing the risk from nuclear weapons are briefly discussed.
... [40] . 尽管本研究发现了代际共情的作用, 但是未能 进一步通过干预验证其作用, 在后续研究中可通过提 供后代的鲜明信息 [40] , 使用更符合真实情境 [41] 、能够 唤起情绪 [42] 的方式, 探究提升代际共情对代际决策的 影响. 代际共情在何种边界条件下发挥作用也是值得 探讨的问题, 例如认知效价 [43] 、催产素 [44] 可能会改变 共情的效应. ...
... Recent research also suggests that the effect of entitativity, which shows bias relative to perception of group belonging, can be another factor influencing reasoning [42]. For instance, children who are identified as part of a family are more likely to collectively receive more aid than children who are seen as a set of independent individuals without explicit group membership, or as statistics [62]. ...
Preprint
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Studies on human decision-making focused on humanitarian aid have found that cognitive biases can hinder the fair allocation of resources. However, few HCI and Information Visualization studies have explored ways to overcome those cognitive biases. This work investigates whether the design of interactive resource allocation tools can help to promote allocation fairness. We specifically study the effect of presentation format (using text or visualization) and a specific framing strategy (showing resources allocated to groups or individuals). In our three crowdsourced experiments, we provided different tool designs to split money between two fictional programs that benefit two distinct communities. Our main finding indicates that individual-framed visualizations and text may be able to curb unfair allocations caused by group-framed designs. This work opens new perspectives that can motivate research on how interactive tools and visualizations can be engineered to combat cognitive biases that lead to inequitable decisions.
... The use of frequencies and "1" in the numerator in the 1-in-X format can evoke a stronger emotional response compared to more abstract numerical formats such as percentages, thereby amplifying the perceived risk. Research suggests that a single identified victim elicits more empathy than a group of victims [56], and people display diminished sensitivity to the value of life as the number of victims increases [57]. In the context of the 1-in-X bias, the emotional weight of the "1" in the numerator might have amplified risk judgments more than the abstract nature of the percentages. ...
Article
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The study aimed to explore whether the 1-in-X bias is also present in relation to immigration growth rates. We tested this research question on a representative sample of adult residents in Trento, Italy, between March and April 2019. Participants were presented with data comparing the foreign immigrant-to-resident population ratio in Italy for 2001 (1 in 40) and 2011 (1 in 15), using two distinct formats—1-in-X and percentages. They were then asked to express the perceived increase. Baseline measures of several individual-level factors, including cultural worldviews, perceptions of immigration, numeracy, science literacy, and economic literacy, were also collected to explore the potential role of individual differences in influencing the effect of the 1-in-X format on the perceived increase in immigrants. The results confirmed the existence of the 1-in-X bias, demonstrating that the immigration growth rate in the 1-in-X format was perceived as higher than in the percentage format, even after controlling for the effects of the idiosyncratic variables. The results of this study provide insight into how different numerical formats can influence public perceptions of immigration growth rates, offering suggestions to policymakers, communicators, and stakeholders about how the presentation of information can shape public opinion.
... For instance, charities may consider incorporating messaging that emphasizes the tangible impact of donations and highlights the collective benefits of supporting multiple beneficiaries. While previous studies have recommended using a single beneficiary as visualization in charitable campaigns (Butts et al., 2019;Kogut & Ritov, 2005), our findings suggest the otherwise. We suggest that utilizing multiple beneficiaries would be more effective for highly frugal consumers as they prioritize the perceived impact of their donations to charities (Sharma & Morwitz, 2016). ...
Article
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This study explores the influence of frugality on donation intentions and examines how the number of beneficiaries moderates this relationship. Across two quantitative studies, the research reveals that frugal individuals show a higher willingness to donate to charity campaigns featuring multiple beneficiaries rather than just one. The perceived impact of donations serves as a crucial intermediary factor, further enhancing donation intent among frugal individuals. These findings suggest that charitable organizations can effectively engage frugal donors by emphasizing the impact of their donations, and secure financial support. This research contributes to the understanding of the psychological mechanisms driving philanthropic decisions among frugal individuals. It highlights the significance of perceived impact and beneficiary number in shaping donation behaviors.
... Therefore, we base our research on this more realistic situation, avoiding the interference of social comparison and jealousy as well. At the same time, although many previous studies have considered how the characteristics of potential recipients affect the amount of money donated or the total amount of help (Andreoni, 2007;Galak et al., 2011;Kogut & Ritov, 2005a, 2005bSoyer & Hogarth, 2011), in the real world, helping resources are usually limited and insufficient to meet the needs of all recipients. This work focuses on how helpers allocate helping resources to multiple potential recipients when these resources are limited. ...
Article
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The helper’s allocation of helping resources to multiple recipients often involves a trade-off between equality and efficiency. This research examines how the condition of potential recipients (“survival” or “development”) influences the preferences for helping resources allocation in terms of equality and efficiency. Through seven studies, including a field study (Study 6), we discovered that helpers show a higher preference for equality over efficiency when recipients are in a survival situation (i.e., below the survival line) as opposed to in development situation (i.e., above the survival line). This phenomenon is attributed to the different priorities of deontological and utilitarian perspectives in survival and development situations (Studies 3 and 4). Our findings offer insights into the existing research on helping decisions and enhance the understanding of the trade-off between efficiency and equality among helpers.
... Outro grupo foi informado de que oito crianças (não identificadas) morreriam caso não recebessem um tratamento de 300 mil dólares. Dos dois grupos, o que recebeu informações apenas de uma única criança fez maior número de doações (TEHILA; ILANA, 2005). ...
Article
Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar o “altruísmo eficaz” aplicado em desastres e crises humanitárias. Peter Singer desenvolve essa abordagem tendo em vista a pobreza absoluta. Neste trabalho, no entanto, busca-se ampliar esse escopo para outros problemas compreendidos a partir do conceito de desastres e crises humanitárias. O artigo é dividido em três partes. Primeiramente, são apresentados os conceitos centrais desta pesquisa: desastre, crise humanitária e altruísmo eficaz. Em seguida, é analisado como algumas propensões da natureza humana limitam ou impedem o altruísmo. Essa parte descreve alguns fatores da psicologia humana sobre como desastres e crises humanitárias são percebidas. Na última parte, o artigo desenvolve uma perspectiva mais prescritiva, isto é, analisando o que deve ser feito para potencializar atos altruístas e ampliar a cultura da doação de dinheiro. Isso parte da concepção de que a ética é uma superação das tendências naturais do ser humano, evitando, assim, o naturalismo na ética. O artigo analisa como o altruísmo eficaz está fundamentado no utilitarismo e que ele deve ser praticado na prevenção e diminuição dos riscos de desastres e crises humanitárias, pois isso exige menos custos e geram resultados melhores no alívio do sofrimento das vítimas e na proteção da vida.
... According to this explanation, individuals are cognitively represented with greater vividness and coherence than groups, which in turn elicits stronger emotional reactions (Hamilton & Sherman, 1996). In contrast to a single victim, a group of victims constrains people's capacity for attention and imagery (i.e., mental representation), which results in a fragmented representation of the victims and thus a weaker affective response (Dickert & Slovic, 2009;Kogut & Ritov, 2005a). For example, participants in Dickert and Slovic (2009) made sympathy judgments about a child target presented alone or as part of a group. ...
Article
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People tend to donate more to help a single rather than a group of victims. However, recent studies were able to reverse this compassion fade effect by presenting people with multiple donation appeals with different victim group sizes (joint evaluation) instead of just one donation appeal (separate evaluation). Because practitioners often use the compassion fade effect to boost giving, the reversal of this effect in joint evaluation settings has important implications for fundraising. This study tests whether the reversed compassion fade effect can be replicated in the field by using data from the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. When browsing projects on GoFundMe, people see multiple projects displayed at once, placing them in a joint evaluation context. I found a concave effect of the perceived victim group size on the amount of funds raised, the number of donations received, and the size of the average donation received by a project.
... We used actual names rather than generic terms such as "Woman A" in order to increase ecological validity, as real politicians invariably present themselves by name on social media. Further, people respond differently to named versus anonymous victims, c.f. the "identified victim effect" (Kogut & Ritov, 2005; S. Lee & Feeley, 2016). However, real names may also signal, for instance, social class, thereby potentially confounding our gender manipulation. ...
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Criticism from dissatisfied citizens is an inevitable part of being an elected politician in a democracy. However, when negative feedback from citizens turns into outright abuse, this can have pernicious personal and democratic consequences. In this study, we therefore investigate how politicians perceive criticisms, insults, threats, and sexist remarks in social media comments. Based on a survey experiment with more than 700 politicians from the local, regional, and national levels, we show that politicians’ assessment of the abusiveness of negative messages are not only affected by the content of the messages but also by political ideology and gender. Left-leaning politicians find negative social media comments to be more abusive than right-leaning politicians do. In addition, politicians are more averse to negative comments targeting women than negative comments targeting men, and male politicians are generally less averse to negative comments than female politicians are. Somewhat surprisingly, politicians are generally not affected by in-party biases, as they exhibit similar levels of aversion towards negative messages directed at co-partisans and out-partisans. While previous research has focused on the extent to which politicians receive online abuse, few studies have examined how politicians perceive potentially abusive messages, and our study thus provides novel insights into what exactly politicians consider to be abusive behavior on social media.
... Nonetheless, we can compare our findings with those of other studies who examined the effect of identifiability on healthcare decision-making more broadly. For example, our findings are generally in line with those of Kogut and Ritov who found that people were more willing to help a victim (i.e., "a child whose life is in danger") who could be identified on the basis of a picture than a similar victim who could not be identified [35,36]. Our findings are furthermore in line with those of Västfjäll et al. who found that financial donations to a humanitarian aid organization were higher in the case that charity requests included a picture of a child threatened by severe hunger or even starvation [37]. ...
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The availability of increasingly advanced and expensive new health technologies puts considerable pressure on publicly financed healthcare systems. Decisions to not—or no longer—reimburse a health technology from public funding may become inevitable. Nonetheless, policymakers are often pressured to amend or revoke negative reimbursement decisions due to the public disagreement that typically follows such decisions. Public disagreement may be reinforced by the publication of pictures of individual patients in the media. Our aim was to assess the effect of depicting a patient affected by a negative reimbursement decision on public disagreement with the decision. We conducted a discrete choice experiment in a representative sample of the public (n = 1008) in the Netherlands and assessed the likelihood of respondents’ disagreement with policymakers’ decision to not reimburse a new pharmaceutical for one of two patient groups. We presented a picture of one of the patients affected by the decision for one patient group and “no picture available” for the other group. The groups were described on the basis of patients’ age, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and life expectancy (LE) before treatment, and HRQOL and LE gains from treatment. We applied random-intercept logit regression models to analyze the data. Our results indicate that respondents were more likely to disagree with the negative reimbursement decision when a picture of an affected patient was presented. Consistent with findings from other empirical studies, respondents were also more likely to disagree with the decision when patients were relatively young, had high levels of HRQOL and LE before treatment, and large LE gains from treatment. This study provides evidence for the effect of depicting individual, affected patients on public disagreement with negative reimbursement decisions in healthcare. Policymakers would do well to be aware of this effect so that they can anticipate it and implement policies to mitigate associated risks.
... According to psychological and sociological studies (Bleiker et al., 2013), close-up images are the ones that can evoke compassion from viewers, whereas wider shots tend to create emotional distance between the observers and the observed. The fewer people in the image, the more likely the viewer is to identify with them (Kogut and Ritov, 2005;Small and Verrochi, 2009;Van Leeuwen and Jewitt, 2004). As we have seen in the results presented, the widest shots (group, 43.1%, and overall, 30.1%, totalling 73.2%) dominated, as opposed to the closest shots (short, 8.5%, and medium ranges, 18.3%). ...
Article
The public’s understanding of the situation of refugees largely depends on how they are represented by the media. This article analyses this representation by studying photographs that appear in four mainstream Spanish newspapers of varied political orientation, comparing two paradigmatic examples: that of Afghan refugees versus Ukrainian refugees. The objective of this analysis is to determine the differences and similarities between how each case is covered, using a mixed quantitative and qualitative content analysis method to determine the images’ denotative and connotative aspects, based on ‘framing theory’. Findings show that, although all the refugees are presented primarily from a human-interest angle, there is a significant degree of depersonalization in their photographic presentation due to the framing and stylistic elements employed. Also, Afghans are viewed with greater suspicion than Ukrainians, with a quarter of their images being associated with the idea of conflict.
... Perhaps the impact of CSI on prosocial consumer behavior is subject to the identifiable victim effect too. However, according to a metaanalysis, the effect is relatively small and occurs only if the identifiable victims are extremely few (i.e., one) (Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Lee & Feeley, 2016). Even if CSI typically results from systematic failures that harm groups of people, we suggest that further research should test whether and how the identifiable victim effect can be realized in this context. ...
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Corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) refers to violations of the social contract between corporations and society. Existing literature documents its tendency to evoke negative consumer responses toward the firm involved, including unethical consumer behaviors. However, limited research attention deals with its potential impacts on prosocial consumer behavior. With six studies, the current research reveals that when consumers perceive harm due to CSI, they engage in more prosocial behavior due to the arousal of their anger. This effect is weaker among consumers who find the focal CSI issue more personally relevant but stronger among consumers with strong self-efficacy for promoting justice. Perceptions of CSI harm increase with the degree of control that the focal firm has over the CSI. This research thus establishes an effect of CSI harm on prosocial consumer behaviors, through the emotional mechanism of anger; it further shows that consumers seek to restore justice by engaging in prosocial behaviors.
... In addition, providing specific information about the recipient(s) of the prosocial act also increased prosociality. When people see the direct effect of their prosocial behavior (e.g., who, what, where their actions are benefitting), it increases their self-efficacy which leads to their subsequent prosocial behavior toward the recipient(s) (Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Small & Loewenstein, 2003). Hence, social service sectors should ensure that their social media platform(s) contain important information about social norms on giving, as well as details about the recipients of their organization's work, to effectively increase emerging adults' prosocial behavior. ...
Article
The COVID-19 crisis has raised a dire dilemma among medical professionals. Faced with a shortage of critical equipment and supplies, how do hospital administrators and physicians determine whether to divert resources from one patient to another? Most decision-makers will prioritize saving younger patients over older ones, because older patients generally have a much shorter life expectancy. But emotions, such as those elicited when a patient's name is known and the patient is thereby humanized, can interfere with rational decision-making. At the height of the pandemic, we conducted three studies in which participants were asked to imagine being hospital officials tasked with allocating ventilators under two conditions: when the affected patients were and were not identified by name. Participants were less likely to reassign a ventilator from an older patient to a younger one when the patients had been named than when they had not. These results suggest that decisionmakers are more likely to make the efficient choice—the one that should save more years of life—when the individuals affected by the choice remain anonymous. When patients are humanized by being named, less rational and more emotional considerations appear to govern how people choose to distribute lifesaving equipment. Our findings imply that keeping patients anonymous may help facilitate the efficient allocation of scarce medical resources.
Article
The war between Russia and Ukraine is not only over territory or security but also over public opinion. Research has shown that national leaders can leverage their personality – in a general, positive sense – to arouse, in people living beyond their countries’ borders, emotions of empathy or pro-social reactions towards their countries’ citizens. We focus on the personality of Ukrainian President Zelensky and examine which of his personality traits can promote empathy and pro-social behavior towards Ukrainians. In two experimental studies, conducted in Israel and in the US, we found that exposure to a news article that highlights Zelensky’s communal traits (warmth/morality), as compared to his agentic traits (competence/determination), led to (a) increased levels of empathy towards Ukrainian citizens, (b) willingness to help them, and (c) an actual monetary donation for their benefit. We end by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.
Article
Effective leadership plays a critical role in the success of organizations, particularly in the nonprofit sector, with positive leader affect, and more recently joy, being one aspect of leadership that significantly influences followers. Whilst some studies of positive affect and joy in leadership have been undertaken in the nonprofit sector, lack of clarity and coherence, as well as theoretical divergence has impeded research integration. This article presents the first systematic literature review of positive affect, and more specifically joy and leadership in the nonprofit sector and systematically identifies the extent to which joy has been considered as a discrete emotion in the current nonprofit leadership literature. In addition, this article synthesises the existing nonprofit leadership literature to determine what employee outcomes joy has been shown to influence. Finally, the quality of current literature and any patterns considering joy and leadership in the nonprofit leadership literature is assessed. Future research opportunities are identified.
Article
Contemporary healthcare environments are becoming increasingly informationally demanding. This requires patients, and those supporting them, to engage with a broad range of expert knowledge. At the same time, patients must find ways to make sense of this information in the context of their own values and needs. In this article, we confront the problem of communication in our current age of complexity. We do this by focusing on a field that has already had to grapple with these issues directly: genetic counseling. We articulate an empathy-based framework that provides a way to integrate the teaching and counseling models of genetic counseling. As well as being useful for those providing genetic counseling in the era of genomic medicine, this framework has the potential to address challenges of communication in healthcare settings beyond genetic counseling. Furthermore, it has important ramifications for ethical debates about autonomy and decision-making.
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This study investigates the demographic, religious, and psychological correlates of charitable giving during times of uncertainty. We employ structural equation modeling to understand the mechanisms that underlie faith-based philanthropy amongst Muslims. For this purpose, we analyzed Muslim American philanthropy during the month of Ramadan in 2020, a month traditionally associated with increased religiosity and philanthropy. Utilizing a sample of 1,722 Muslims in the United States and Canada, uncertainty intolerance was associated with financial anxiety (B = .26), which in turn was related to donating less money (B = -.06). Financial anxiety was also associated with subjective financial well-being (B =.-.22), which was associated with donations (B = .11). We also found that income (B = .23), education (B = .30), and age (B = .28) positively predicted charitable giving. Increased religious practice (B = .07), such as prayer and reading scripture, was also associated with donating more money. Our results add valuable insights to the literature about the predictors and mediators of religious giving and philanthropy under uncertainty.
Article
This research work investigates the relationship between personality traits and pro-social behaviour among male and female students, with a particular focus on examining the potential correlation between personality traits and pro-social behaviour. A sample of 100 data was collected to explore the predictive power of various personality traits on pro-social behaviour. The study found no significant gender differences in pro-social behaviour, suggesting that both males and females exhibit similar levels of altruistic tendencies. Furthermore, the analysis revealed a positive correlation between neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness with prosocial behaviour. Specifically, individuals scoring higher in neuroticism and extraversion tended to demonstrate greater pro-social behaviour. However, no significant correlation was found between openness, agreeableness, and pro-social behaviour. Moreover, through regression analysis, it was identified that neuroticism and extraversion emerged as significant predictors of pro-social behaviour. These findings highlight the importance of certain personality traits in predicting altruistic tendencies among students, regardless of gender. Overall, this research work contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the role of personality in shaping pro-social behaviour among male and female students. The implications of these findings are discussed about understanding and promoting altruistic behaviour in educational settings.
Chapter
Why are some refugee groups more welcomed than others? This study explores the nuanced dynamics underlying host community members’ (HCMs) differential reception of refugee groups, delving into the intersectionality of cultural similarity and perceived ‘otherness’. While extant literature predominantly examines demographic factors as pivotal in shaping HCMs’ attitudes towards refugees, the focus has primarily been on Western contexts, where differences and ‘otherness’ are more discernible. However, this research extends the inquiry to culturally analogous HCMs and refugee groups, specifically the Bulgarian-Turks and Syrians, who sought refuge in Bursa, Turkey, during disparate timeframes (late 1980s and mid-2010s, respectively). Thus, I argue that, when there are elements in common with both refugee groups, HCMs focus on the differences to create and justify gradual otherness within different refugee groups. By conducting interviews with HCMs, this study aims to elucidate how perceptions of ‘otherness’ manifest when shared cultural elements exist between HCMs and refugees, which will be crucial for the studies that focus on the South-South forced migration.
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We have examined how much money participants take for themselves from an amount designated either for a well-known charity or for a state’s public budget. For a third of the participants, the decision was real – they were paid the chosen amount afterward, and the donation to a charity or public budget was lowered by this amount. For the rest, the decision was hypothetical, with no consequences. In a follow-up study, a different sample of participants was tasked with estimating behavior in both conditions. As expected, participants took more money from the public budget than the charity. However, when the decision was hypothetical, they took less money only from the public budget. Participants who could take money from the charity did not take less in the hypothetical than in the real condition. This was unexpected also for participants in the follow-up study, who significantly underestimated the amount of money taken from charities in the hypothetical condition. The results highlight limited generalizability of findings regarding moral and prosocial choices that use only hypothetical or vignette scenarios and suggest that interactions between positive self-presentation and monetary incentives are more context-dependent than expected.
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This theoretical article summarizes the various psychological and motivational processes that underlie prosocial decision-making. To this aim, we propose a novel way to organize and synthesize research related to emotions, thoughts, and beliefs (i.e., psychological mechanisms) that motivate or demotivate human prosociality. This is done with a new typology including four overarching interrelated categories, each encompassing multiple subcategories: (a) emotions; (b) moral principles; (c) anticipated impact; and (d) anticipated personal consequences. We highlight differences and commonalities to other influential frameworks and showcase how the proposed typology can help researchers and practitioners better differentiate and understand the diverse psychological mechanisms that underlie human prosociality.
Article
Online abuse is becoming an increasingly pressing issue for democratic societies. Citizens play an important role in curtailing abuse as they often moderate online content through counter speech and by reporting abusive messages. However, we know little about when citizens actually perceive negative comments directed at politicians as being abusive, and the factors shaping these perceptions are also understudied. In this study, we therefore investigate how citizens perceive criticism, insults, threats and sexist remarks directed at politicians on social media. Based on a survey experiment with 2,000 Danish citizens, we show that citizens’ assessments of the abusiveness of such remarks are not only affected by the content of the messages, but also by political ideology, political trust and gender. Surprisingly, partisanship does not seem to substantively affect perceptions of abuse. Our study provides novel insights into what exactly citizens consider to be abusive behaviour on social media.
Chapter
This chapter explores the intersection of social neuroscience and pro-environmental behavior to understand how prosocial neuroscientific approaches can inform and enhance climate change mitigation efforts. It emphasizes the critical role of understanding cognitive, affective, and motivational antecedents of behavior to address climate change effectively. By examining the neural underpinnings of prosocial behavior, we highlight how insights from social neuroscience may be used to foster pro-environmental decisions and actions. We first discuss methodologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation, underscoring their potential to reveal determinants of pro-environmental behavior. Then, we discuss the importance of empathy, social cognition, and the neural mechanisms underlying prosociality, suggesting that these can provide a foundation for investigating and encouraging pro-environmental behavior. In addition, the chapter aims to pave the way for a new subdiscipline, environmental social neuroscience, focusing on the cognitive, affective, and social drivers of environmental decision-making and behavior. Integrating neuroscientific and environmental psychology approaches requires innovative research to understand and mitigate the impacts of climate change, ultimately contributing to a sustainable future.
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Dieses Buch untersucht die Rolle des Altruismus in Zeiten von Krisen und Pandemien und beleuchtet, wie selbstloses Verhalten in extremen Situationen sowohl individuelle als auch gesellschaftliche Resilienz fördern kann. Es analysiert die psychologischen Mechanismen, die altruistisches Handeln motivieren, einschließlich Empathie, Mitgefühl und sozialer Normen, und zeigt gleichzeitig die potenziellen negativen Auswirkungen auf, wie das Helfer-Syndrom und Compassion Fatigue. Die Untersuchung geht auf die Bedeutung politischer und gesellschaftlicher Maßnahmen ein, die altruistisches Verhalten gezielt fördern können, und beleuchtet die Rolle von NGOs und Gemeinschaften als treibende Kräfte der Unterstützung. Durch die kritische Betrachtung der Grenzen des Altruismus in extremen Krisen wird verdeutlicht, dass Altruismus sowohl unverzichtbar als auch komplex ist. Das Buch bietet somit eine differenzierte Perspektive auf Altruismus als ein Schlüsselelement der Krisenbewältigung und formuliert konkrete Implikationen für zukünftige Forschung und Praxis.
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While visual cues have been pervasively employed in online charitable appeals to increase donors’ positive responses, the contrast of the recipient’s imagery at different time nodes has received little attention in philantrophic marketing. This research explored the effect of recipients’ imagery contrast on donation willingness and distinguished two contrast effects in visual imagery of online charitable appeals: pre-middle contrast that depicts the past health and current state and post-middle contrast that portrays the future health and current state. We conducted three scenario-based experimental studies based on Credamo participants (total N = 910). Study 1 (N = 198) using a one factor (pre-middle contrast vs. post-middle contrast vs. no contrast) between -subjects design demonstrated that charitable appeals with imagery contrast (vs. no contrast) led to higher donation intentions. Study 2 (N = 145) compared two different contrast effects (pre-middle contrast vs. post-middle contrast), with findings showing that guilt mediated the effect of pre-middle contrast while hope mediated the effect of post-middle contrast on willingness to donate; guilt and hope had opposing mediating roles, resulting in no significant difference in donation willingness between the two contrast effect types. Study 2 also examined the moderating effect of individuals’ optimism tendencies. Study 3 (N = 567) showed the spatial position of imagery photos had on significant influence on donation willingness. These findings shed light on the research on visual imagery in charitable appeals as well as its effective adoption in online charity advertising.
Article
Derogation of the victim refers to the tendency of an observer to negatively evaluate someone hurt by the action of another. Victim derogation has been a core feature of social psychology for decades, but evidence suggests this phenomenon is weakening. It may even be reversing into a valorization of victims. Is this empirical pattern due to methodological changes and shifts in theoretical framing of victim studies, or have there been large-scale cultural changes in how we view victims? This review outlines the theoretical and methodological origins of the derogation effect. It then discusses contemporary research streams that show the malleability of victim perception in research that considers the entire harmful social interaction. These studies suggest that shifts in broader social, political, and cultural environments may have impacted the social psychological foundations of derogation.
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We explore in laboratory how donations to a charity can be influenced by the identifiability and the social categorization of the recipients. We find that donors give more, on average, to unidentified than to identified beneficiaries, since the latter are more likely to receive small donations than the former. Average donations are the same for in- and out-group beneficiaries; however, an in-group recipient is more likely to receive a top donation than an out-group one, whereas the latter is more likely than the former to receive an intermediate donation. Both first- and second-order effects are associated to the Dynamic Identity Fusion Index elicited from participants toward the ‘Multicultural World’.
Chapter
The ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis, which originated in Myanmar, has seen more than a million people displaced since the 1990s (UNHCR, n.d.). The latest round of violence, beginning in August 2017, has driven nearly 940,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh alone (UNHCR, n.d.). The study examines news frames of Rohingya refugees in the newspapers of record of three countries in South and Southeast Asia: Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Pakistan. A number of research studies have shown how specific frames in media representations of refugees have a bearing on the tone of public discourse and ultimately affect matters of aid and policy (Esses et al., 2013; Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017; Holzberg et al., 2018; Lawlor & Tolley, 2017; Smith & Waite, 2019). Therefore, it is important to gain a better understanding of refugee representations and their link to larger cultural frames so that we can strive for better alternatives. It is also important to study media coverage in neigboring countries because they often end up hosting the largest numbers of refugees, especially in the short term.
Article
Although much of human morality evolved in an environment of small group living, almost 6 billion people use the internet in the modern era. We argue that the technological transformation has created an entirely new ecosystem that is often mismatched with our evolved adaptations for social living. We discuss how evolved responses to moral transgressions, such as compassion for victims of transgressions and punishment of transgressors, are disrupted by two main features of the online context. First, the scale of the internet exposes us to an unnaturally large quantity of extreme moral content, causing compassion fatigue and increasing public shaming. Second, the physical and psychological distance between moral actors online can lead to ineffective collective action and virtue signaling. We discuss practical implications of these mismatches and suggest directions for future research on morality in the internet era.
Article
Utilising framing theory and conceptual metaphor theory, the present study delves into how media can aid social workers in enhancing public awareness of social problems. A comparative content analysis was conducted, focusing on two Israeli cases involving the attempted murder of women by their partners during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Of the 570 reports analysed, 210 reports focused on the two cases of attempted murder of women by their partners. The first case received only episodic framing in contrast to the second case, which transitioned from episodic framing to thematic framing, leading to noteworthy social and legislative changes. Three transformative factors were identified as contributors to the shift in media coverage: the timing of the event; the willingness of the victim to be interviewed and the presence of a family member or professional accompanying the media story. This study also underscores the importance of understanding the metaphorical language employed by the media in influencing public awareness. On a practical level, the findings of the study offer insights into the essential elements of media-based social work that can foster the recognition of social problems and their prevention, complementing other social work interventions.
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There is much debate on the question about whether people are intuitively honest or intuitively dishonest. A recent social harm account was proposed to address this debate: dishonesty is intuitive when cheating inflicts harm on an abstract other while honesty is intuitive when cheating inflicts harm on a concrete other. This pre-registered and well-powered study (n = 764) aims to directly test this account by using a time pressure manipulation. Specifically, we examined whether time pressure (vs. self-paced) leads to more cheating when there is an abstract victim, but not when there is a concrete victim. Results showed no effect of time pressure and/or harm type on cheating. Given the seemingly low replication rate in this field of study and the use of contested experimental manipulations our research calls for preregistered research to directly test the effects of time pressure and social harm on the intuitive nature of (dis-)honest behavior.
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Previous research has found that business culture has a detrimental impact on interpersonal trust. To understand whether this impact extends to rapid, automatic, bottom–up judgments of facial trustworthiness, we conducted 4 experiments involving 244 participants from economic and non-economic backgrounds. We presented participants with both trustworthy and untrustworthy faces and asked them to make judgments on trustworthiness. The results show that individuals who are engaged in studying economics, work in an economics-related occupation, or are exposed to an imagined business culture evaluate trustworthy faces to be less trustworthy. The findings shed light on why and how business culture affects the formation of interpersonal trust.
Chapter
To make the process of identifying and recognizing needs more transparent and to postulate a theory of need-based justice, we investigated various frames in which decision problems were embedded. External frames in a strict sense, with gain and loss frames in risky choices and need as an additional factor, showed significant differences in choice frequencies. External frames in a loose sense, such as time constraints, different diseases in an Asian Disease paradigm, and the identifiability of a needy person, showed framing effects and mixed results with respect to need. Internal frames measured by personality inventories also showed mixed results. The dual-stage dual-process model includes a normative part and a descriptive part, which both account for framing effects. In one version of the model, the normative part includes the expected utility model modified by the Stone–Geary function.
Chapter
This chapter aggregates the results of the disciplinary and mostly experimental sub-projects of the research group “Need-Based Justice and Distribution Procedures” into an empirically informed normative theory of need-based justice. Its elements include a concept of need, the identification of need, the recognition of need, and the consequences of need-based redistribution. The chapter also critically discusses the results in relation to the normative criteria of consistency, legitimacy, and sustainability. As a central result, we present a distributive principle for prosperous societies based on reciprocal solidarity—the Lexineed principle—which, within the framework of a strong pluralistic theory of distributive justice, gives priority to the satisfaction of recognized needs over all other principles of justice.
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This article analyzes the similarities and differences in forming impressions of individuals and in developing conceptions of groups. In both cases, the perceiver develops a mental conception of the target (individual or group) on the basis of available information and uses that information to make judgments about that person or group. However, a review of existing evidence reveals differences in the outcomes of impressions formed of individual and group targets, even when those impressions are based on the very same behavioral information. A model is proposed to account for these differences. The model emphasizes the role of differing expectancies of unity and coherence in individual and group targets, which in turn engage different mechanisms for processing information and making judgments. Implications of the model are discussed.
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A series of studies examines whether certain biases in probability assessments and perceptions of loss, previously found in experimental studies, affect consumers' decisions about insurance. Framing manipulations lead the consumers studied here to make hypothetical insurance-purchase choices that violate basic laws of probability and value. Subjects exhibit distortions in their perception of risk and framing effects in evaluating premiums and benefits. Illustrations from insurance markets suggest that the same effects occur when consumers make actual insurance purchases.
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Results of 2 experiments supported the proposal that empathy-induced altruism can lead one to act in a way that violates the moral principle of justice. In each experiment, participants were asked to make an allocation decision that affected the welfare of other individuals. Participants who were not induced to feel empathy tended to act in accord with a principle of justice; participants who were induced to feel empathy were significantly more likely to violate this principle, allocating resources preferentially to the person for whom empathy was felt. High-empathy participants who showed partiality agreed with other participants in perceiving partiality to be less fair and less moral (Experiment 1). Overall, results suggested that empathy-induced altruism and the desire to uphold a moral principle of justice are independent prosocial motives that sometimes cooperate but sometimes conflict. Implications of this independence are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cognitive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate this information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive at a decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, physiological, and other subfields of psychology, they show that emotional reactions to risky situations often diverge from cognitive assessments of those risks. When such divergence occurs, emotional reactions often drive behavior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of phenomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist terms.
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This research examined whether people can accurately predict the risk preferences of others.Three experiments featuring different designs revealed a systematic bias: that participants predicted others to be more risk seeking than themselves in risky choices, regardless of whether the choices were between options with negative outcomes or with positive outcomes. This self-others discrepancy persisted even if a monetary incentive was offered for accurate prediction. However, this discrepancy occurred only if the target of prediction was abstract and vanished if the target was vivid. A risk-as-feelings hypothesis was introduced to explain these findings.
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In this article the authors develop a descriptive theory of choice using anticipated emotions. People are assumed to anticipate how they will feel about the outcomes of decisions and use their predictions to guide choice. The authors measure the pleasure associated with monetary outcomes of gambles and offer an account of judged pleasure called decision affect theory. Then they propose a theory of choices between gambles based on anticipated pleasure. People are assumed to choose the option with greater subjective expected pleasure. Similarities and differences between subjective expected pleasure theory and subjective expected utility theory are discussed.
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Three experiments tested whether empathy evokes egoistic motivation to share vicariously in the victim's joy at improvement (the empathic-joy hypothesis) instead of altruistic motivation to increase the victim's welfare (the empathy-altruism hypothesis). In Experiment 1, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy for a young woman in need were given a chance to help her. Some believed that if they helped they would receive feedback about her improvement; others did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy were given a choice of getting update information about a needy person's condition. Before choosing, they were told the likelihood of the person's condition having improved--and of their experiencing empathic joy--was 20%, was 50%, or was 80%. Results of none of the experiments patterned as predicted by the empathic-joy hypothesis; instead, results of each were consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
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Two experiments investigated differences in forming impressions of individual and group targets. Experiment 1 showed that when forming an impression of an individual, perceivers made more extreme trait judgments, made those judgments more quickly and with greater confidence, and recalled more information than when the impression target was a group. Experiment 2 showed that when participants were forming an impression of an individual, expectancy-inconsistent behaviors spontaneously triggered causal attributions to resolve the inconsistency; this was not the case when the impression target was a group. Results are interpreted as reflecting perceivers' a priori assumptions of unity and coherence in individual versus group targets.
Article
Although often confused, imagining how another feels and imagining how you would feel are two distinct forms of perspective taking with different emotional consequences. The former evokes empathy; the latter, both empathy and distress. To test this claim, undergraduates listened to a (bogus) pilot radio interview with a young woman in serious need. One third were instructed to remain objective while listening; one third, to imagine how the young woman felt; and one third, to imagine how they would feel in her situation. The two imagine perspectives produced the predicted distinct pattern of emotions, suggesting different motivational consequences: Imagining how the other feels produced empathy, which has been found to evoke altruistic motivation; imagining how you would feel produced empathy, but it also produced personal distress, which has been found to evoke egoistic motivation.
Article
Prosocial motivation is egoistic when the ultimate goal is to increase one's own welfare; it is altruistic when the ultimate goal is to increase another's welfare. The view that all prosocial behavior, regardless how noble in appearance, is motivated by some form of self-benefits may seem cynical. But it is the dominant view in contemporary psychology. Most contemporary psychologists who use the term have no intention of challenging the dominant view that all human behavior, including all prosocial behavior, is motivated by self-serving, egoistic desires. Contemporary pseudoaltruistic views can be classified into three types: altruism as prosocial behavior, not motivation, altruism as prosocial behavior seeking internal rewards, and altruism as prosocial behavior to reduce aversive arousal. If altruistic motivation exists, then one has to make some fundamental changes in the conception of human motivation and indeed of human nature. As yet, the evidence is not sufficiently clear to justify such changes. If the conceptual analysis and research outlined in the chapter have merit, then the threshold of an empirical answer to the question why one care for other will be reached.
Article
Campaigns to make people aware of their susceptibility to health and safety risks reflect the assumption that people's perception of susceptibility can be influenced by exposure to information about such risks. However, such attempts to encourage precautionary behavior are seldom effective in influencing people's personal risk judgments. Tyler and Cook's (1984) impersonal impact hypothesis and Weinstein's (1980) work on unrealistic optimism suggest that information campaigns can only exert influence on societal level judgments, but not on personal level judgments (people's beliefs about their personal lives). Based on the notion that direct experience of harm is often a powerful stimulus to action, the two studies reported in this article demonstrate that indirect experience may be as powerful as direct experience when it shares some of its properties. The results of these studies show that "vivid" and "self-relevant" information can influence both personal and societal level judgments. Implications for use of risk information in public service campaigns are discussed.
Article
In each of two experiments, some participants chose between allocation of resources to the group as a whole or to themselves alone (egoism condition); some chose between allocation to a group or to a group member for whom they were induced to feel empathy (altruism condition); and some chose between allocation to a group or to a member for whom empathy was not induced (baseline condition). When the decision was private, allocation to the group was significantly - and similarly - lower in the egoism and altruism conditions compared to the baseline. When the decision was public, allocation to the group was significantly lower only in the altruism condition. These results indicated, first, that both egoism and altruism can be potent threats to the common good and, second, that anticipated social evaluation is a powerful inhibitor of the egoistic but not the altruistic threat.
Article
[This book examines] empathy from the standpoint of contemporary social/personality psychology—emphasizing these disciplines' traditional subject matter (e.g., emotion, cognition, helping, aggression) and its research techniques (survey research, laboratory experiments). [The author's] goal was to provide a thorough, readable . . . summary of contemporary empathy research [primarily for advanced undergraduate and graduate students]. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Subjects are reluctant to vaccinate a (hypothetical) child when the vaccination itself can cause death, even when this is much less likely than death from the disease prevented. This effect is even greater when there is a ‘risk group’ for death (with its overall probability held constant), even though the test for membership in the risk group is unavailable. This effect cannot be explained in terms of a tendency to assume that the child is in the risk group. A risk group for death from the disease has no effect on reluctance to vaccinate. The reluctance is an example of omission bias (Spranca, Minsk & Baron, in press), an overgeneralization of a distinction between commissions and omissions to a case in which it is irrelevant. Likewise, it would ordinarily be prudent to find out whether a child is in a risk group before acting, but in this case it is impossible, so knowledge of the existence of the risk group is irrelevant. The risk-group effect is consistent with Frisch & Baron's (1988) interpretation of ambiguity.
Article
People’s greater willingness to help identified victims, relative to non-identified ones, was examined by eliciting real contributions to targets varying in singularity (a single individual vs. a group of several individuals), and the availability of individually identifying information (the main difference being the inclusion of a picture in the “identified” versions). Results of the first and second experiments support the proposal that for identified victims, contributions for a single victim exceed contributions for a group when these are judged separately, but preference reverses when one has to choose between contributing to the single individual and contributing to the group. In a third experiment, ratings of emotional response were elicited in addition to willingness to contribute judgments. Results suggest that the greater contribution to a single victim relative to the group stems from intensified emotions evoked by a single identified victim rather than from emotions evoked by identified victims in general.
Article
Tension between health policy and medical practice exists in many situations. For example, regional variations in practice patterns persist despite extensive shared information,1 2 3 there are substantial deviations from accepted guidelines daily in the care of patients,4 5 6 7 and disproportionate amounts of care are given to selected individuals.8 9 10 These observations indicate that decisions in the clinical arena, which focus on the individual patient, may be at variance with general medical policies, which are based on wider considerations. Our study investigated this discrepancy. Imagine a patient presenting to a physician with a specific problem. Normally the physician treats each patient as a unique . . .
Article
Cognitive-experiential self-theory integrates the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious by assuming the existence of two parallel, interacting modes of information processing: a rational system and an emotionally driven experiential system. Support for the theory is provided by the convergence of a wide variety of theoretical positions on two similar processing modes; by real-life phenomena--such as conflicts between the heart and the head; the appeal of concrete, imagistic, and narrative representations; superstitious thinking; and the ubiquity of religion throughout recorded history--and by laboratory research, including the prediction of new phenomena in heuristic reasoning.
Article
This article analyzes the similarities and differences in forming impressions of individuals and in developing conceptions of groups. In both cases, the perceiver develops a mental conception of the target (individual or group) on the basis of available information and uses that information to make judgments about that person or group. However, a review of existing evidence reveals differences in the outcomes of impressions formed of individual and group targets, even when those impressions are based on the very same behavioral information. A model is proposed to account for these differences. The model emphasizes the role of differing expectancies of unity and coherence in individual and group targets, which in turn engage different mechanisms for processing information and making judgments. Implications of the model are discussed.
Article
Prospect theory's S-shaped weighting function is often said to reflect the psychophysics of chance. We propose an affective rather than psychophysical deconstruction of the weighting function resting on two assumptions. First, preferences depend on the affective reactions associated with potential outcomes of a risky choice. Second, even with monetary values controlled, some outcomes are relatively affect-rich and others relatively affect-poor. Although the psychophysical and affective approaches are complementary, the affective approach has one novel implication: Weighting functions will be more S-shaped for lotteries involving affect-rich than affect-poor outcomes. That is, people will be more sensitive to departures from impossibility and certainty but less sensitive to intermediate probability variations for affect-rich outcomes. We corroborated this prediction by observing probability-outcome interactions: An affect-poor prize was preferred over an affect-rich prize under certainty, but the direction of preference reversed under low probability. We suggest that the assumption of probability-outcome independence, adopted by both expected-utility and prospect theory, may hold across outcomes of different monetary values, but not different affective values.
Article
Although it has been claimed that people care more about identifiable than statistical victims, demonstrating this "identifiable victim effect" has proven difficult because identification usually provides information about a victim, and people may respond to the information rather than to identification per se. We show that a very weak form of identifiability--determining the victim without providing any personalizing information--increases caring. In the first, laboratory study, subjects were more willing to compensate others who lost money when the losers had already been determined than when they were about to be. In the second, field study, people contributed more to a charity when their contributions would benefit a family that had already been selected from a list than when told that the family would be selected from the same list. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Article
It is widely believed that people are willing to expend greater resources to save the lives of identified victims than to save equal numbers of unidentified or statistical victims. There are many possible causes of this disparity which have not been enumerated previously or tested empirically. We discuss four possible causes of the "identifiable victim effect" and present the results of two studies which indicate that the most important cause of the disparity in treatment of identifiable and statistical lives is that, for identifiable victims, a high proportion of those at risk can be saved. Copyright 1997 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
Unethical behavior directed toward groups versus individuals: the role of target type in promoting misrepresentation
  • A E Tenbrunsel
  • K Diekmann
  • C E Naquin
Tenbrunsel, A. E., Diekmann, K., & Naquin, C. E. (2003). Unethical behavior directed toward groups versus individuals: the role of target type in promoting misrepresentation. Manuscript.
The role of risk perception in risk management decisions: who's afraid of a poor old-age? Developments in decision-making under uncertainty: Implications for retirement plan design and plan sponsors
  • E U Weber
Weber, E. U. (2004). The role of risk perception in risk management decisions: who's afraid of a poor old-age? In O. S. Mitchell, & S. P. Utkus (Eds.), Developments in decision-making under uncertainty: Implications for retirement plan design and plan sponsors. Philadelphia, PA: Pension Research Council.
  • Cialdini
  • Epstein