The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluations

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Abstract

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.

Section snippets

Experiment 1

The present experiment contrasts the effect of identification of a single victim with the effect of identification of a group of victims on people’s actual contributions to those victims. Our main hypothesis is that contributions to save identified victims will be greater than contributions to save unidentified ones, predominantly when the target is a single individual. We further predict that across identification levels, contributions for a single victim will be greater than contributions for

Experiment 2

The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated the effect of the singularity of identified victims: the mean contribution for saving a group of eight identified children was significantly lower than that for saving a single identified child. In that study, the two cases, saving a single identified victim and saving a group of identified victims, were evaluated separately. The two options were presented in isolation and evaluated by different people. The present experiment was designed to examine the

Experiment 3

In the present experiment, we further explore the boundaries of the identified single victim effect, by examining the effect of the targets’ identification on the intention to contribute, when these targets are not necessarily in a grave predicament. The targets, in this case, were again children. However, in this experiment they were described as gifted children who were eligible to participate in a special 16-year long, highly expensive study program. In one version, the children were

General discussion

The present research provides further evidence for the identified victim effect. Unless willingness to contribute is driven by a special personal attachment to the particular identified victim, the greater contribution to an identified victim may not serve the contributor’s goals to the best extent, as it is unlikely that social benefits will be maximized when resources are made available to identified victims more than to unidentified ones. Thus, understanding the sources and boundaries for

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