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The identifiable victim effect is the tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person ("victim") is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need.^[1]

The identifiable victim effect has two components. People are more inclined to help an identified victim than an unidentified one, and people are more inclined to help a single identified victim than a group of identified victims. Although helping an identified victim may be commendable, the identifiable victim effect is considered a cognitive bias. From a consequentialist point of view, the cognitive error is the failure to offer N times as much help to N unidentified victims.

The identifiable victim effect has a mirror image that is sometimes called the identifiable perpetrator effect. Research has shown that individuals are more inclined to mete out punishment, even at their own expense, when they are punishing a specific, identified perpetrator.^[2]

The conceptualization of the identifiable victim effect as it is known today is commonly attributed to American economist Thomas Schelling. He wrote that harm to a particular person invokes “anxiety and sentiment, guilt and awe, responsibility and religion, [but]…most of this awesomeness disappears when we deal with statistical death”.^[3]

Historical figures from Joseph Stalin to Mother Teresa are credited with statements that epitomize the identifiable victim effect. The remark "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic" is widely, although probably incorrectly, attributed to Stalin.^[4] The remark "If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will," is attributed to Mother Teresa.^[5]

Examples

This article mentions many historical incidents that have been cited as examples of the identifiable victim effect. These incidents serve as illustrative examples but do not constitute evidence that the effect exists.

Arrest of Rosa Parks

The conviction of Rosa Parks in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat in favor of a White passenger inspired the Black community to boycott the Montgomery, Alabama buses for over a year. Parks appealed her conviction, but her case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court found bus segregation unconstitutional in Browder v. Gayle, a case with four plaintiffs. Parks remains a symbol of resistance to racial segregation in the United States, while the four Browder v. Gayle plaintiffs are much less well known.

'Baby Jessica' in the well

On October 14, 1987, 18-month old Jessica McClure fell into a narrow well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas.^[6] Within hours, 'Baby Jessica', as she became known, made headlines around the US. The public reacted with sympathy towards her ordeal. While teams of rescue workers, paramedics and volunteers worked to successfully rescue 'Baby Jessica' in 58 hours, the public donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family. Even after Jessica was discharged from the hospital, the McClure family was flooded with cards and gifts from members of the public as well as a visit from then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and a telephone call from then-President Ronald Reagan.^[7]

Drowning of Alan Kurdi

In September, 2015, three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan (or Aylan) Kurdi drowned when he and his family tried to reach Europe by boat. A photograph of Kurdi's body caused a dramatic upturn in international concern over the refugee crisis. The picture has been credited with causing a surge in donations to charities helping migrants and refugees, with one charity, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, recording a 15-fold increase in donations within 24 hours of its publication.^[8]^[9]

Murder of George Floyd

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in May, 2020 led to worldwide protests against police brutality.^[10]^[11] Almost 1,000 people are killed in the U.S. by police every year,^[12] and a black male is 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police as a white male.^[13] The reader is invited to introspect and consider if he or she is a thousand times more outraged by a thousand annual killings than by the killing of George Floyd.^[14]

For which victims is the effect strongest?

Meta-analysis of experimental evidence

A meta-analysis^[15] of studies through 2015 of the identifiable victim effect found that not all studies achieve statistical significance, and the effect size, in general, is small. In an experiment more recent than the meta-analysis, identifying a victim in COVID-19 messaging had no meaningful effect on pro-health behaviors such as hand-washing, mask-wearing, and staying at home.^[16]

On the other hand, extremely subtle experimental manipulations may yield significant effects. For example, Small and Loewenstein^[17] found that when the victim is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to help the victim if they know the victim's number when they decide whether to help than if they learn the number later.

The meta-analysis^[15] found that statistical significance is enhanced and the effect size is increased under the following circumstances:

if the identified victim is a child
if a photograph of the victim is shown
if the victim's plight is caused by poverty rather than disease or injury
if the victim is perceived as not responsible for his/her plight

Vividness

Information that identifies a victim may include vivid details such as photographs, video, and a description of the victim's predicament. The victim may be portrayed as innocent and helpless. These details evoke emotional responses and provide a sense of familiarity and social closeness. Therefore, identified victims may elicit greater support than statistical victims.^[18]

Studies have found that people respond more to concrete, graphic information than abstract, statistical information.^[19] Bohnet and Frey (1999)^[20] and Kogut and Ritov (2005)^[21] found that vividness contributes to the identifiable victim effect. Another study by Kogut and Ritov (2005)^[22] found that donations to benefit a needy child increased when the name and a picture of the child were provided. Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)^[1] did not observe an effect of vividness.

In 2003, Deborah Small and George Loewenstein conducted an experiment showing that the identifiable victim effect does not result from vividness alone. Victims were identified only by number. Participants selected the victim to whom they could donate by picking a victim's number out of a bag. Participants donated significantly more money if they picked the victim's number before donating rather than afterward. ^[17] They donated more to an already identified victim even though the victim's identity was hidden from them.

Singularity effect

The identifiable victim effect disappears when a group of victims, rather than a single victim, is identified.^[15] In a group of two or more victims, identifying every victim makes no difference. For example, a 2005 study by Kogut and Ritov^[23] asked participants how much they would be willing to donate to either a critically ill child or a group of eight critically ill children. Although identifying the individual child increased donations, identifying every child in the group of eight did not.

Paul Slovic^[5] argued that our compassion fades as the number of victims increases, and eventually collapses. He and his colleagues found that experimental subjects donated less to help two starving children than to help one.^[24]

When the victim can be blamed

Research suggests that if an individual is seen as responsible for their plight, people offer less help if the victim is identified.^[25] Most research dedicated to the identifiable victim effect avoids the topic of blame, using explicitly blameless individuals, such as children suffering from an illness.^[23] However, there are real-world situations where victims may be seen as to blame for their current situation. For example, in a 2011 study by Kogut, individuals were less likely to offer help to an AIDS victim if the victim had contracted AIDS through sexual contact than if the individual was born with AIDS. In other words, individuals were less likely to offer help to victims if they were seen as at least partially responsible for their plight. A meta-study conducted in 2016 supports these findings, reporting that charitable donations were highest when the victim showed little responsibility for their victimization.^[15]

In such cases where victim blaming is possible, identification of individuals may not induce sympathy and may actually increase negative perception of the victim.^[25] This reduction in help is even more pronounced if the individual believes in the just world fallacy, which is the tendency for people to blame the victim for what has happened to them. This pattern of blame results from a desire to believe that the world is predictable and orderly and that those who suffer must have done something to deserve their suffering.

Explanations

Researchers^[1] ^[15] have proposed various underlying causes of the identifiable victim effect, which may work together to produce the effect. These possible causes are given below, and experimental tests are cited.

Emotional reactions

According to the affect heuristic, people make decisions based on emotions rather than objective analysis. A single identified victim may trigger a stronger emotional response than a group of unidentified victims. Several studies have found that identifying a victim evokes more sympathy^[22]^[26] for the victim and more distress^[21]^[26] at the victim's plight, along with more willingness to help.

Kogut and Ritov,^[22] for example, asked participants how much they would donate to help a critically ill child. When they identified the child, feelings of distress at the child's plight increased along with donations. This supports the idea that altruistic acts may serve as coping mechanisms to alleviate negative emotions, such as distress or guilt.^[27]

Effect of reference group size

Risk that is concentrated is perceived as greater than the same risk dispersed over a wider population. Identifiable victims are their own reference group; if they do not receive aid then the entire reference group will perish.^[1]^[28] For example, Fetherstonhaugh et al^[29] found that an intervention saving a fixed number of lives was considered less beneficial when more total lives were at risk.

Jenni and Loewenstein's^[1] experimental subjects showed significantly more support for risk-reducing actions when a higher proportion of the reference group was at risk. This effect was so striking that Jenni and Loewenstein suggested that the identifiable victim effect could instead be called the “percentage of reference group saved effect”.

Perceived responsibility

People tend to feel more responsibility for victims who are psychologically closer to them, and people may feel closer to an identified victim. Indeed, several studies have found that individuals feel more responsibility for an identified victim.^[26]^[30]

Identified vs statistical victims

Some victims cannot be identified because they are statistical. For example, we do not know whose lives would be saved if 10% more of the population were vaccinated against a disease. There are several theoretical reasons to suspect that identified victims are more likely to be helped than statistical ones:

People underestimate the importance of outcomes that are merely probable rather than certain. If the money sent to Baby Jessica when she was trapped in the well had been spent on preventative health care for children, many lives might plausibly have been saved, but Jessica certainly would have died if she had not been rescued in time.

In one of Jenni and Loewenstein's^[1] two experiments comparing certain and uncertain deaths, their subjects were significantly more concerned about certain deaths.

People regret losses more than they enjoy equivalent gains. In the Baby Jessica example above, the death of Jessica if she had not been rescued would have been a tragic loss, but the children's lives that might have been saved through preventative health care were framed as gains.

The decision to help an identified victim is made ex post, after the victim is in danger, but the decision to save a statistical victim is often made ex ante, to prevent danger to the individual.^[31] People may feel a responsibility to an actual identified victim^[32] but not to a possible victim of a future tragedy that might not occur. This explanation is closest to what Thomas Schelling implied in his now-famous paper.

Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)^[1] did not find evidence that ex post vs ex ante evaluation contributes to the identifiable victim effect, but Small and Lowenstein (2003)^[17] did.

Indeed, researchers have generally found that identified victims are more likely to be helped than statistical ones.^[17] For example, Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic^[33] found that subjects donated much more money to help a single starving girl named Rokia than to relieve a famine described statistically.

Relation to other cognitive biases

The identifiable victim effect is a special case of a more general phenomenon: people respond to stories more readily than to facts. Kubin et al^[34] found that people have more respect for their political opponents' opinions when their opponents support their opinions with personal experiences rather than facts. In keeping with the literature on the identifiable victim effect, they found that personal experiences involving harm are particularly effective.

The preference for helping a single individual rather than a group is sometimes called the singularity effect.^[22]^[26] Indifference to the number of individuals helped is called scope neglect or scope insensitivity.

The identifiable victim effect has a mirror image that is sometimes called the identifiable perpetrator effect.^[35]^[36] Research has shown that individuals are more inclined to mete out punishment, even at their own expense, when they are punishing a specific, identified perpetrator. They also exert more severe punishments and express stronger feelings of blame and anger. Even when the perpetrator is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to punish if they know the perpetrator’s number when they decide whether to punish than if they learn the number later.^[2] This effect has also been called the “Goldstein effect,” after the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein, who was vilified as the supposed enemy of the state in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.^[37]

These two effects, of identifiable victims and identifiable perpetrators, suggest that there is a more general identifiable other effect, such that any identified individual evokes a stronger reaction than an equivalent but unidentified individual.^[2]^[38]^[6]

Implications

Public policy and politics

Healthcare

The identifiable victim effect may also influence healthcare, both at the individual and national level.^[39] On the individual level, doctors are more likely to recommend expensive, but potentially life-saving, treatments to an individual patient rather than to a group of patients. This effect is not limited to medical professionals, as laymen demonstrate this same bias towards providing more expensive treatments for individual patients.^[39] On the national level, the American people are far more likely to contribute to an expensive treatment to save the life of one person rather than spend much smaller amounts on preventative measures that could save the lives of thousands per year. A function of American individualism, this nationwide bias towards expensive treatments is still prevalent today.^[40]

Brady Bill

James S. Brady, the then-White House press secretary, was among three collateral damage victims in the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. Brady was explicitly named in reports of the shooting in contrast to the other two injured, a District of Columbia police officer and a Secret Service agent. The political reaction was largely focused on the injuries of Brady which led to the enactment of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993. It states that it is mandatory for firearm dealers to perform background searches on firearm purchasers.^[41]

Ryan White Care Act

The need to tackle the problems faced by AIDS sufferers was brought to the political forefront as a result of the legal and social plight of one particular AIDS victim, Ryan White, who contracted HIV at age 13 and died of AIDS six years later. His circumstances and his campaign for greater funding for AIDS research were widely publicised in the media. Following his death in 1990, the US Congress passed the Ryan White Care Act, which funded the largest set of services for people living with AIDS in the country.^[42]

Defunding peacekeeping efforts in Darfur

In November 2005, the U.S. Congress stripped $50 million from a bill that would have funded peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, where genocide was claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.^[43]

Less than a month earlier, Rosa Parks had passed away. Her casket had lain in state at the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, and many elected officials, including President George W. Bush, had attended her memorial service. Genocide expert Paul Slovic wrote, "We appropriately honor the one, Rosa Parks, but by turning away from the crisis in Darfur we are, implicitly, placing almost no value on the lives of millions there."^[5]

George Santos' misstatements

Republican politician George Santos was elected to Congress in a formerly Democratic district after falsely claiming that his mother was a 9/11 casualty and his maternal grandparents were Jewish Holocaust refugees who had fled Soviet Ukraine and German-occupied Belgium. Actually, his mother, who died in 2016, was not in the United States on September 11, 2001. ^[44]^[45] His maternal grandparents actually lived in Brazil. ^[46] Whether Santos would have been elected if he had not made these (and other) misstatements is unknown.

Criminal justice

Since the identifiable victim effect can influence punishment, it has the potential to undermine the system of trial by jury.^[2] Jurors, when deliberating, work with an identifiable alleged perpetrator, and thus may attach negative emotions (e.g. disgust, anger) to the individual or assign increased blame when handing down a harsh sentence. Policymakers, who are unable to see the individual offender, being almost entirely emotionally removed, may actually have intended a more lenient sentence. This may produce a harsher verdict than the legal guidelines recommend or allow. On the other extreme, jurors may feel sympathy, relating with the perpetrator on a level not experienced by policymakers, leading to a milder verdict than legally appropriate or allowable.^[2]

Typically in crime investigations, law enforcement forces conceal any information regarding the identities of the suspects until they have strong evidence that the suspects are credible. When identities of suspects are revealed through description of their features or release of their images, media coverage and public discussion on the issue grows. On one side, the public discourse can become increasingly negative and hostile, or, if the perpetrator is sympathetic, support for the perpetrator may grow. This is because people experience a greater emotional reaction towards a concrete, identifiable perpetrator than an abstract, unidentifiable one.^[2]

Business ethics

Yam and Reynolds^[27] speculated that the growing anonymity of parties to business transactions may contribute to an increase in unethical business behavior. They hypothesized that because of increasing corporate size, the ubiquity of e-commerce, and the commoditization of workers, business executives are less likely to know their employees, customers, and shareholders, and therefore they might be more willing to exploit these unidentified potential victims.

In one of their experiments, they asked their subjects if they would approve of withholding a drug from the market if releasing it later would bring a greater profit. Their experimental subjects voiced more approval for withholding the drug if all of the victims of the disease the drug treats were unidentified than if one of the victims was named.

Other researchers suggested that outside observers, not only perpetrators, view unethical behavior as less unethical if the victim of the unethical behavior is unidentified.^[47] This could possibly result in less public outcry against unethical practices in a globalized business environment, where the victims are often unseen.

Personality differences among potential helpers

Attachment anxiety

High levels of attachment anxiety may increase the power of identifiable victim effect.

When presented with an identified victim, individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to donate more money than the average individual.^[48] Research suggests that anxiously attached people experience significantly more personal distress than those securely attached when confronted with victims in need, so they donate more in order to relieve their distress.^[49]

When presented with an unidentified victim, individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to donate less money than the average individual. Research suggests that unidentified victims do not provoke distress, and that anxiously attached people focus on their own vulnerabilities, so that they have less inclination to help unidentified others.

Although anxiously attached people may participate in prosocial behaviors, such as donating money to a charity, researchers hypothesize that their actions are not the result of altruistic tendencies, but instead are "positively correlated with egoistic, rather than altruistic motives for helping and volunteering,"^[48]^: 652 and that anxiously attached people engage in pro-social behavior mainly when strenuous effort is not required.^[48]

Guilt

Yam and Reynolds^[27] investigated the propensity to victimize others. Their experimental subjects harmed unidentified others more than named others, and anticipated that harming named others would provoke more guilt than harming unidentified others. The experimenters did not test whether people who are more prone to feelings of guilt experience the identified victim effect more intensely.

Reasoning style

Research suggests that individual differences in reasoning style moderate the identifiable victim effect.^[50] Two different methods of reasoning are “experiential” and “rational”. Experiential thinking (e.g. emotionally-based thinking) is automatic, contextual and fluid, and rational thinking (e.g. logically based thinking) is deliberative, analytical, and decontextualized. Experiential thinking styles may increase the power of the identifiable victim effect, and rational thinking styles may decrease the power of the identifiable victim effect. Researchers theorize that these differences result because experiential thinkers rely on emotional responses towards an issue when making a decision. In contrast, rational thinkers analyze the situation as a whole before making a decision. Thus, a person thinking rationally would respond to all victims equally, not giving preference to those specifically named or otherwise identified, just as experiential thinkers would be drawn towards the more emotionally charged identified victim.^[50] However, research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that identifiable victim effects on public health promoting behaviors were not only undetected, but also not mediated by behavioral tests of reasoning style.^[16]

References

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[Jenni_&_Loewenstein,_1997-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Jenni, Karen; Loewenstein, George (1997-05-01). "Explaining the Identifiable Victim Effect" (PDF). Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. 14 (3): 235–257. doi:10.1023/A:1007740225484. ISSN 0895-5646. S2CID 8498645.

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 The conceptualization of the identifiable victim effect as it is known today is commonly attributed to American economist [[Thomas Schelling]]. He wrote that harm to a particular person invokes “anxiety and sentiment, guilt and awe, responsibility and religion, [but]…most of this awesomeness disappears when we deal with statistical death”.<ref name="Schelling, 1968">{{Cite journal|last=Schelling|first=Thomas, C|year=1968|editor-last=Chase|title=The Life You Save May Be Your Own|journal=Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis|pages=127–162}}</ref>
-Historical figures from [[Joseph Stalin]] to [[Mother Teresa]] are credited with statements that epitomize the identifiable victim effect. The remark "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic" is widely, although probably incorrectly, attributed to Stalin.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ | title=A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic – Quote Investigator}}</ref> The remark "If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will," is attributed to Mother Teresa.<ref name="look at the mass">{{cite journal| url=http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm7303a.pdf| title="If I look at the mass I will never act": Psychic numbing and genocide| publisher=Society for Judgment and Decision Making| journal=Judgment and Decision Making| date=April 2007| volume=2| number=2| first=Paul| last=Slovic| pages=79–95| doi=10.1017/S1930297500000061}}</ref>
+Historical figures from [[Joseph Stalin]] to [[Mother Teresa]] are credited with statements that epitomize the identifiable victim effect. The remark "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic" is widely, although probably incorrectly, attributed to Stalin.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/ | title=A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic – Quote Investigator| date=21 May 2010}}</ref> The remark "If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will," is attributed to Mother Teresa.<ref name="look at the mass">{{cite journal| url=http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm7303a.pdf| title="If I look at the mass I will never act": Psychic numbing and genocide| publisher=Society for Judgment and Decision Making| journal=Judgment and Decision Making| date=April 2007| volume=2| number=2| first=Paul| last=Slovic| pages=79–95| doi=10.1017/S1930297500000061}}</ref>
-== Examples and evidence ==
+==Examples==
-===Examples===
 This article mentions many historical incidents that have been cited as examples of the identifiable victim effect. These incidents serve as illustrative examples but do not constitute evidence that the effect exists.
-====Arrest of Rosa Parks====
+===Arrest of Rosa Parks===
-The conviction of [[Rosa Parks]] in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat in favor of a White passenger inspired the Black community to boycott the Montgomery, Alabama buses for over a year. Parks appealed her conviction, but her case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court found bus segregation unconstitutional in [[Browder v. Gayle]], a case with four plaintiffs.
+The conviction of [[Rosa Parks]] in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat in favor of a White passenger inspired the Black community to boycott the Montgomery, Alabama buses for over a year. Parks appealed her conviction, but her case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court found bus segregation unconstitutional in [[Browder v. Gayle]], a case with four plaintiffs. Parks remains a symbol of resistance to racial segregation in the United States, while the four Browder v. Gayle plaintiffs are much less well known.
+==='Baby Jessica' in the well===
-Parks became a symbol of resistance to racial segregation in the United States. Upon her death in 2005, the nation mourned and honored her. Researcher Paul Slovic noted that at about the same time as Parks' casket was lying in state at the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Congress stripped $50 million from a bill that would have funded peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, where [[Darfur genocide|genocide]] was claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.<ref name="look at the mass" />
+On October 14, 1987, 18-month old [[Rescue of Jessica McClure|Jessica McClure]] fell into a narrow well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas.<ref name= "Loewenstein & Small, 2005">{{Citation |last1=Loewenstein|first1=George|last2=Small|first2=Deborah|last3=Strnad|first3=Jeff|date=2005-03-01|title=Statistical, Identifiable and Iconic Victims and Perpetrators|ssrn=678281|location=Rochester, NY}}</ref> Within hours, 'Baby Jessica', as she became known, made headlines around the US. The public reacted with sympathy towards her ordeal. While teams of rescue workers, paramedics and volunteers worked to successfully rescue 'Baby Jessica' in 58 hours, the public donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family. Even after Jessica was discharged from the hospital, the McClure family was flooded with cards and gifts from members of the public as well as a visit from then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and a telephone call from then-President Ronald Reagan.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/baby-jessica-rescued-from-a-well-as-the-world-watches|title=October 16, 1987 : Baby Jessica rescued from a well as the world watches|date=2011|website=history.com|access-date=2017-02-12|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->}}</ref>
-===='Baby Jessica' in the well====
+===Drowning of Alan Kurdi===
-On October 14, 1987, 18-month old Jessica McClure fell into a narrow well in her aunt's backyard in Midland, Texas.<ref name= "Loewenstein & Small, 2005">{{Citation |last1=Loewenstein|first1=George|last2=Small|first2=Deborah|last3=Strnad|first3=Jeff|date=2005-03-01|title=Statistical, Identifiable and Iconic Victims and Perpetrators|ssrn=678281|location=Rochester, NY}}</ref> Within hours, 'Baby Jessica', as she became known, made headlines around the US. The public reacted with sympathy towards her ordeal. While teams of rescue workers, paramedics and volunteers worked to successfully rescue 'Baby Jessica' in 58 hours, the public donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family. Even after Jessica was discharged from the hospital, the McClure family was flooded with cards and gifts from members of the public as well as a visit from then-Vice President George H.W. Bush and a telephone call from then-President Ronald Reagan.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/baby-jessica-rescued-from-a-well-as-the-world-watches|title=October 16, 1987 : Baby Jessica rescued from a well as the world watches|date=2011|website=history.com|access-date=2017-02-12|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->}}</ref>
-====Drowning of Alan Kurdi====
 In September, 2015, three-year-old Syrian refugee [[Death of Alan Kurdi|Alan (or Aylan) Kurdi]] drowned when he and his family tried to reach Europe by boat. A photograph of Kurdi's body caused a dramatic upturn in international concern over the refugee crisis. The picture has been credited with causing a surge in donations to charities helping migrants and refugees, with one charity, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, recording a 15-fold increase in donations within 24 hours of its publication.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Henley|first1=Jon|title=Britons rally to help people fleeing war and terror in Middle East|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/britons-rally-to-help-people-fleeing-war-and-terror-in-middle-east|access-date=3 September 2015|newspaper=The Guardian|date=3 September 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-gym/bias-spotlight-identifiable-victim-effect| title=Bias in the Spotlight: Identifiable Victim Effect| website=The Marketing Society}}</ref>
-====Murder of George Floyd====
+===Murder of George Floyd===
-The [[murder of George Floyd]] by a police officer in May, 2020 led to worldwide protests against police brutality.<ref>{{cite web | title=Protests across the globe after George Floyd's death | publisher=CNN | date=June 6, 2020 | url=https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/world/gallery/intl-george-floyd-protests/index.html | access-date=September 14, 2020 | archive-date=September 17, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200917061449/https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/world/gallery/intl-george-floyd-protests/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="BBC">{{cite web |date=June 1, 2020 |title=George Floyd death: Violence erupts on sixth day of protests |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52872401 |website=BBC News |access-date=June 13, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606172814/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52872401|archive-date=June 6, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Almost 1,000 people are killed in the U.S. by police every year,<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/| title=Fatal Force| newspaper=The Washington Post| access-date=July 21, 2021}}</ref> and a black male is 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police as a white male.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America| url=https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793| title=Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex| first1=Frank| last1=Edwards| first2=Hedwig| last2=Lee| first3=Michael| last3=Esposito| date=August 20, 2019| volume=116| number=34}}</ref> The reader is invited to introspect and consider if he or she is a thousand times more outraged by a thousand annual killings than by the murder of George Floyd.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.mediavsreality.com/mediavsreality2/2021/1/27/why-people-get-sad-about-the-wrong-things| title=WHY PEOPLE GET UPSET ABOUT THE WRONG STORIES| date=February 6, 2021| website=Media vs Reality}}</ref>
+The [[murder of George Floyd]] by a police officer in May, 2020 led to worldwide protests against police brutality.<ref>{{cite web | title=Protests across the globe after George Floyd's death | publisher=CNN | date=June 6, 2020 | url=https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/world/gallery/intl-george-floyd-protests/index.html | access-date=September 14, 2020 | archive-date=September 17, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200917061449/https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/06/world/gallery/intl-george-floyd-protests/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="BBC">{{cite web |date=June 1, 2020 |title=George Floyd death: Violence erupts on sixth day of protests |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52872401 |website=BBC News |access-date=June 13, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606172814/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52872401|archive-date=June 6, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref> Almost 1,000 people are killed in the U.S. by police every year,<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/| title=Fatal Force| newspaper=The Washington Post| access-date=July 21, 2021}}</ref> and a black male is 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police as a white male.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America| title=Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex| first1=Frank| last1=Edwards| first2=Hedwig| last2=Lee| first3=Michael| last3=Esposito| date=August 20, 2019| volume=116| number=34| pages=16793–16798| doi=10.1073/pnas.1821204116| pmid=31383756| pmc=6708348| bibcode=2019PNAS..11616793E| doi-access=free}}</ref> The reader is invited to introspect and consider if he or she is a thousand times more outraged by a thousand annual killings than by the killing of George Floyd.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.mediavsreality.com/mediavsreality2/2021/1/27/why-people-get-sad-about-the-wrong-things| title=WHY PEOPLE GET UPSET ABOUT THE WRONG STORIES| date=February 6, 2021| website=Media vs Reality}}</ref>
+== For which victims is the effect strongest? ==
+===Meta-analysis of experimental evidence===
+A meta-analysis<ref name="2016 meta-analysis">{{Cite journal |last1=Lee|first1=Seyoung |last2=Feeley|first2=Thomas Hugh|date=2016-07-02|title=The identifiable victim effect: a meta-analytic review |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15534510.2016.1216891 |journal=Social Influence|language=en|volume=11|issue=3|pages=199–215 |doi=10.1080/15534510.2016.1216891|s2cid=152232362 |issn=1553-4510}}</ref> of studies through 2015 of the identifiable victim effect found that not all studies achieve statistical significance, and the effect size, in general, is small. In an experiment more recent than the meta-analysis, identifying a victim in COVID-19 messaging had no meaningful effect on pro-health behaviors such as hand-washing, mask-wearing, and staying at home.<ref name="Byrd 104649"/>
+On the other hand, extremely subtle experimental manipulations may yield significant effects. For example, Small and Loewenstein<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2003" /> found that when the victim is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to help the victim if they know the victim's number when they decide whether to help than if they learn the number later.
+The meta-analysis<ref name="2016 meta-analysis"/> found that statistical significance is enhanced and the effect size is increased under the following circumstances:
-===Summary of experimental evidence===
-A meta-analysis<ref name="2016 meta-analysis">{{Cite journal |last1=Lee|first1=Seyoung |last2=Feeley|first2=Thomas Hugh|date=2016-07-02|title=The identifiable victim effect: a meta-analytic review |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15534510.2016.1216891 |journal=Social Influence|language=en|volume=11|issue=3|pages=199–215 |doi=10.1080/15534510.2016.1216891|s2cid=152232362 |issn=1553-4510}}</ref> of studies through 2015 of the identifiable victim effect found that not all studies achieve statistical significance, and the effect size, in general, is small. However, in some cases the experimental manipulations are subtle. For example, Small and Loewenstein<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2003" /> found that when the victim is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to help the victim if they know the victim's number when they decide whether to help than if they learn the number later.
-==== For what victims is the effect strongest? ====
-The meta-analysis of studies through 2015<ref name="2016 meta-analysis"/> found that statistical significance is enhanced and the effect size is increased under the following circumstances:
 * if the identified victim is a child
 * if a photograph of the victim is shown
 * if the victim's plight is caused by poverty rather than disease or injury
 * if the victim is perceived as not responsible for his/her plight
-The identifiable victim effect disappears when a group of victims, rather than a single victim, is identified.<ref name="2016 meta-analysis" />
+=== Vividness ===
-The identifiable victim effect motivates helping the identified victim and helping others in similar circumstances, but it may not motivate helping oneself. Research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that the effect of identifiable victims in public health messaging had either no meaningful effect or a reverse identifiable victim effect on pro-health behaviors such as hand-washing, mask-wearing, and staying at home.<ref name="Byrd 104649"/>
+Information that identifies a victim may include vivid details such as photographs, video, and a description of the victim's predicament. The victim may be portrayed as innocent and helpless. These details evoke emotional responses and provide a sense of familiarity and social closeness. Therefore, identified victims may elicit greater support than statistical victims.<ref name="Collins & Taylor, 1988">{{Cite journal|last1=Collins|first1=Rebecca L.|last2=Taylor|first2=Shelley E.|last3=Wood|first3=Joanne V.|last4=Thompson|first4=Suzanne C.|date=1988-01-01|title=The vividness effect: Elusive or illusory?|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|volume=24|issue=1|pages=1–18|doi=10.1016/0022-1031(88)90041-8}}</ref>
+Studies have found that people respond more to concrete, graphic information than abstract, statistical information.<ref name= "Nisbett, 1980">{{Cite book|title=Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment|last1=Nisbett|first1=Richard|last2=Ross|first2=Lee|publisher=Prentice-Hall|year=1980|isbn=978-0134451305|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/humaninferencest0000nisb}}</ref> Bohnet and Frey (1999)<ref>{{cite journal| date=1999| first1=Iris| last1=Bohnet| first2=Bruno S.| last2=Frey| title=Social distance and other-regarding behavior in dictator games: Comment| journal=The American Economic Review| volume=89| number=1| pages=335–339| doi=10.1257/aer.89.1.335| url=https://booksc.eu/book/61978738/97d32c| access-date=2021-07-15| archive-date=2021-12-14| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211214140146/https://booksc.eu/book/61978738/97d32c| url-status=dead}}</ref> and Kogut and Ritov (2005)<ref name="Kogut 2005a">{{cite journal| first1=Tehila| last1=Kogut| first2=Ilana| last2=Ritov| journal=Journal of Behavioral Decision Making| volume=18| number=3| pages=157–167| date=2005| url=https://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msiritov/KogutRitovIdentified.pdf| title=The "Identified Victim" Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual?| doi=10.1002/bdm.492}}</ref> found that vividness contributes to the identifiable victim effect. Another study by Kogut and Ritov (2005)<ref name="Kogut 2005b">{{cite journal| first1=Tehila| last1=Kogut| first2=Ilana| last2=Ritov| journal=Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes| volume=97| number=2| pages=106–116| date=2005| title=The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluation| doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.02.003| url=https://www.academia.edu/15659171}}</ref> found that donations to benefit a needy child increased when the name and a picture of the child were provided. Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997" /> did not observe an effect of vividness.
-== Relation to other cognitive biases ==
-The preference for helping a single individual rather than a group is sometimes called the singularity effect.<ref name="Kogut 2005b" /><ref name="Erlandsson 2015" /> Indifference to the number of individuals helped is called [[scope neglect]] or scope insensitivity.
+In 2003, Deborah Small and George Loewenstein conducted an experiment showing that the identifiable victim effect does not result from vividness alone. Victims were identified only by number. Participants selected the victim to whom they could donate by picking a victim's number out of a bag. Participants donated significantly more money if they picked the victim's number before donating rather than afterward. <ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2003" /> They donated more to an already identified victim even though the victim's identity was hidden from them.
-The identifiable victim effect has a mirror image that is sometimes called the identifiable perpetrator effect.<ref>{{cite web | title=TWO ROUTES TO THE PERCEPTION OF NEED: THE ROLE OF AFFECTIVE VS. DELIBERATIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING IN PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR | url=https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/7232/Stephan_Dickert.pdf | last=Dickert | first = Stephan | date=March 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Psychology of Environmental Law| last1=Rowell| first1=Arden| last2= Bilz| first2=Kenworthey| date=February 2021| chapter=2|page=60| doi=10.18574/nyu/9781479812301.001.0001| publisher=NYU Press| isbn=9781479807574| s2cid=244309090}}</ref>
+=== Singularity effect ===
-Research has shown that individuals are more inclined to mete out punishment, even at their own expense, when they are punishing a specific, identified perpetrator. They also exert more severe punishments and express stronger feelings of blame and anger. Even when the perpetrator is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to punish if they know the perpetrator’s number when they decide whether to punish than if they learn the number later.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2005">{{Cite journal|last1=Small|first1=Deborah A.|last2=Loewenstein|first2=George|date=2005-12-01|title=The devil you know: the effects of identifiability on punishment|journal=Journal of Behavioral Decision Making|language=en|volume=18|issue=5|pages=311–318|doi=10.1002/bdm.507|issn=1099-0771|url=https://repository.upenn.edu/marketing_papers/279}}</ref> This effect has also been called the “Goldstein effect,” after the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein, who was vilified as the supposed enemy of the state in George Orwell’s novel [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]].<ref name = "Sunstein">{{cite book|first=Cass R.|last=Sunstein|author-link=Cass R. Sunstein|title=Worst-Case Scenarios|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|date=2009|isbn=978-0-674-03251-4|page=63}}</ref>
+The identifiable victim effect disappears when a group of victims, rather than a single victim, is identified.<ref name="2016 meta-analysis" /> In a group of two or more victims, identifying every victim makes no difference. For example, a 2005 study by Kogut and Ritov<ref name= "Kogut & Ritov, 2005" /> asked participants how much they would be willing to donate to either a critically ill child or a group of eight critically ill children. Although identifying the individual child increased donations, identifying every child in the group of eight did not.
+Paul Slovic<ref name="look at the mass" /> argued that our compassion fades as the number of victims increases, and eventually collapses. He and his colleagues found that experimental subjects donated less to help two starving children than to help one.<ref>{{cite journal | title=Compassion Fade: Affect and Charity are Greatest for a Single Child in Need | last1=Västfjäll | first1=Daniel | last2=Slovic | first2= Paul | last3=Mayorga | first3=Marcus | last4=Peters | first4=Ellen | date=June 18, 2014 | journal=PLOS ONE | language=en | volume=9 | issue=6 | pages=e100115 | doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0100115| pmid=24940738 | pmc=4062481 | bibcode=2014PLoSO...9j0115V | doi-access=free }}</ref>
-These two effects, of identifiable victims and identifiable perpetrators, suggest that there is a more general identifiable other effect, such that any identified individual evokes a stronger reaction than an equivalent but unidentified individual.<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2005" /><ref name="Loewenstein Small Strnad">{{cite web | title=Statistical, Identifiable and Iconic Victims and Perpetrators| last1=Loewenstein| first1=George| last2=Small|first2=Deborah A.|last3=Strnad|first3=Jeff|date=March 7, 2005|url= http://ssrn.com/abstract=678281}}</ref><ref name= "Loewenstein & Small, 2005" />
+=== When the victim can be blamed ===
+Research suggests that if an individual is seen as responsible for their plight, people offer less help if the victim is identified.<ref name= "Kogut, 2011">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T | year = 2011 | title = Someone to blame: when identifying a victim decreases helping | url = http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/store/10.1002/bdm.492/asset/492_ftp.pdf?v=1&t=j1vk6fsl&s=1a3860951722425fce0c1b7d8c04c57cc7ec8f93 | journal = Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | volume = 47 | issue = 4| pages = 748–755 | doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2011.02.011}}</ref> Most research dedicated to the identifiable victim effect avoids the topic of blame, using explicitly blameless individuals, such as children suffering from an illness.<ref name= "Kogut & Ritov, 2005">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T. | last2 = Ritov | first2 = I. | year = 2005 | title = The "identified victim" effect: an identified group, or just a single individual? | url = http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/store/10.1002/bdm.492/asset/492_ftp.pdf?v=1&t=j1vk6fsl&s=1a3860951722425fce0c1b7d8c04c57cc7ec8f93 | journal = Journal of Behavioral Decision Making | volume = 18 | issue = 3| pages = 157–165 | doi=10.1002/bdm.492}}</ref> However, there are real-world situations where victims may be seen as to blame for their current situation. For example, in a 2011 study by Kogut, individuals were less likely to offer help to an [[HIV/AIDS|AIDS]] victim if the victim had contracted AIDS through sexual contact than if the individual was born with AIDS. In other words, individuals were less likely to offer help to victims if they were seen as at least partially responsible for their plight. A meta-study conducted in 2016 supports these findings, reporting that charitable donations were highest when the victim showed little responsibility for their victimization.<ref name= "2016 meta-analysis" />
+In such cases where [[victim blaming]] is possible, identification of individuals may not induce sympathy and may actually increase negative perception of the victim.<ref name= "Kogut, 2011" /> This reduction in help is even more pronounced if the individual believes in the [[Just-world fallacy|just world fallacy]], which is the tendency for people to blame the victim for what has happened to them. This pattern of blame results from a desire to believe that the world is predictable and orderly and that those who suffer must have done something to deserve their suffering.
 == Explanations ==
-Researchers<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> <ref name="2016 meta-analysis" /> have proposed various explanations of the identifiable victim effect, which may work together to produce the effect. These explanations are given below, and experimental tests of the explanations are cited.
+Researchers<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> <ref name="2016 meta-analysis" /> have proposed various underlying causes of the identifiable victim effect, which may work together to produce the effect. These possible causes are given below, and experimental tests are cited.
 === Emotional reactions ===
-According to the [[affect heuristic]], people make decisions based on emotions rather than objective analysis. A single identified victim may trigger a stronger emotional response than a group of unidentified victims. Several studies have found that identified victims evoke more sympathy and more willingness to help than statistical victims.<ref name="Erlandsson 2015" /><ref name="Kogut 2005a" /><ref name="Kogut 2005b" />
+According to the [[affect heuristic]], people make decisions based on emotions rather than objective analysis. A single identified victim may trigger a stronger emotional response than a group of unidentified victims. Several studies have found that identifying a victim evokes more sympathy<ref name="Kogut 2005b" /><ref name= "Erlandsson 2015">{{cite journal | last1 = Erlandsson | first1 = A. | last2 = Björklund | first2 = F. | last3 = Bäckström | first3 = M. | year = 2015 | title = Emotional reactions, perceived impact and perceived responsibility mediate the identifiable victim effect, proportion dominance effect and in-group effect respectively | journal = Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | volume = 127 | pages = 1–14 | doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.11.003| s2cid = 17321619 }}</ref> for the victim and more distress<ref name="Kogut 2005a" /><ref name="Erlandsson 2015" /> at the victim's plight, along with more willingness to help.
+Kogut and Ritov,<ref name="Kogut 2005b" /> for example, asked participants how much they would donate to help a critically ill child. When they identified the child, feelings of distress at the child's plight increased along with donations. This supports the idea that altruistic acts may serve as coping mechanisms to alleviate [[negative emotion]]s, such as distress or guilt.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" />
-Paul Slovic<ref name="look at the mass" /> argued that our compassion fades as the number of victims increases, and eventually collapses. He and his colleagues found that experimental subjects donated less to help two starving children than to help one.<ref>{{cite journal | title=Compassion Fade: Affect and Charity are Greatest for a Single Child in Need | last1=Västfjäll | first1=Daniel | last2=Slovic | first2= Paul | last3=Mayorga | first3=Marcus | last4=Peters | first4=Ellen | date=June 18, 2014 | journal=PLOS ONE | language=en | volume=9 | issue=6 | pages=e100115 | doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0100115| pmid=24940738 | pmc=4062481 | doi-access=free }}</ref>
-=== Relative size of the reference group ===
+=== Effect of reference group size ===
-Risk that is concentrated is perceived as greater than the same risk dispersed over a wider population. Identifiable victims are their own reference group; if they do not receive aid then the entire reference group will perish.<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997" /><ref>{{cite journal | title=Proportion dominance: The generality and variability of favoring relative savings over absolute savings| last=Bartels| first=Daniel M.| date=2006| journal=Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes| volume=100| pages=76–95| doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.10.004}}</ref> For example, Fetherstonhaugh et al<ref>{{cite journal|   first1=David| last1=Fetherstonhaugh| first2=Paul| last2=Slovic| first3=Stephen| last3=Johnson| first4=Friedrich| last4=James| title=Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing| journal=Journal of Risk and Uncertainty| volume=14| pages=283–300| date=May 1997| issue=3| doi=10.1023/A:1007744326393| s2cid=51033376}}</ref> found that an intervention saving a fixed number of lives was considered less beneficial when more total lives were at risk.
+Risk that is concentrated is perceived as greater than the same risk dispersed over a wider population. Identifiable victims are their own reference group; if they do not receive aid then the entire reference group will perish.<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997" /><ref>{{cite journal | title=Proportion dominance: The generality and variability of favoring relative savings over absolute savings| last=Bartels| first=Daniel M.| date=2006| journal=Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes| volume=100| pages=76–95| doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.10.004}}</ref> For example, Fetherstonhaugh et al<ref>{{cite journal| first1=David| last1=Fetherstonhaugh| first2=Paul| last2=Slovic| first3=Stephen| last3=Johnson| first4=Friedrich| last4=James| title=Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing| journal=Journal of Risk and Uncertainty| volume=14| pages=283–300| date=May 1997| issue=3| doi=10.1023/A:1007744326393| s2cid=51033376}}</ref> found that an intervention saving a fixed number of lives was considered less beneficial when more total lives were at risk.
 Jenni and Loewenstein's<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> experimental subjects showed significantly more support for risk-reducing actions when a higher proportion of the reference group was at risk. This effect was so striking that Jenni and Loewenstein suggested that the identifiable victim effect could instead be called the “percentage of reference group saved effect”.
@@ Line 69: / Line 73: @@
 People tend to feel more responsibility for victims who are psychologically closer to them, and people may feel closer to an identified victim. Indeed, several studies have found that individuals feel more responsibility for an identified victim.<ref name="Erlandsson 2015" /><ref>{{cite book | last=Small | first=D.A.| date=2015 | chapter=On the psychology of the identifiable victim effect | title=Identified vs. statistical lives: An interdisciplinary perspective | pages=13–23 | editor-last1=Cohen | editor-first1=I.G. | editor-last2=Daniels | editor-first2=N. | editor-last3=Eyal | editor-first3=N. | publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref>
-=== ''Ex post'' vs ''ex ante'' evaluation ===
+=== Identified vs statistical victims ===
+Some victims cannot be identified because they are statistical. For example, we do not know whose lives would be saved if 10% more of the population were vaccinated against a disease. There are several theoretical reasons to suspect that identified victims are more likely to be helped than statistical ones:
-The decision to save an identifiable victim is made ''ex post'', after the victim is in danger. In contrast, the decision to save a statistical victim is often made ''ex ante'', to prevent the individual from being in danger.<ref name="Weinstein, Shepard, & Pliskin, 1980">{{Cite journal|last1=Weinstein|first1=M|last2=Shepard|first2=D|last3=Pliskin|first3=J|year=1980|title=The Economic Value of Changing Mortality Probabilities: A Decision-Theoretic Approach|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=94 |issue=2|pages=373–396|doi=10.2307/1884546|jstor=1884546}}</ref> People may feel a responsibility to an actual identified victim<ref name="Douglas, 2017">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-7B2338nHGgC&pg=PR1|title=Risk and Blame|last1=Douglas|first1=Professor Mary|last2=Douglas|first2=Professor of Anthropology Mary|date=2013-06-17|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781136490040|language=en}}</ref> but not to a possible victim of a future tragedy that might not occur. This explanation is closest to what Thomas Schelling implied in his now-famous paper.
+* People underestimate the importance of outcomes that are merely probable rather than certain. If the money sent to Baby Jessica when she was trapped in the well had been spent on preventative health care for children, many lives might plausibly have been saved, but Jessica certainly would have died if she had not been rescued in time.<br><br>In one of Jenni and Loewenstein's<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> two experiments comparing certain and uncertain deaths, their subjects were significantly more concerned about certain deaths.
-Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> did not find evidence that ''ex post'' vs ''ex ante'' evaluation contributes to the identifiable victim effect, but Small and Lowenstein (2003)<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2003">{{cite journal|first1=Deborah A.| last1=Small| first2=George| last2=Loewenstein| title=Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability| journal=Journal of Risk and Uncertainty| volume=26| number=1| date=January 2003| pages=5–16| doi=10.1023/A:1022299422219| s2cid=207550600| url=https://creativescience.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Helping-a-Victim-or-Helping-the-Victim.pdf}}</ref> did.
-=== Vividness ===
-Information that identifies a victim may include vivid details such as photographs, video, and a description of the victim's predicament. The victim may be portrayed as innocent and helpless. These details evoke emotional responses and provide a sense of familiarity and social closeness. Therefore, identified victims may elicit greater support than statistical victims.<ref name="Collins & Taylor, 1988">{{Cite journal|last1=Collins|first1=Rebecca L.|last2=Taylor|first2=Shelley E.|last3=Wood|first3=Joanne V.|last4=Thompson|first4=Suzanne C.|date=1988-01-01|title=The vividness effect: Elusive or illusory?|journal=Journal of Experimental Social Psychology|volume=24|issue=1|pages=1–18|doi=10.1016/0022-1031(88)90041-8}}</ref>
+* People regret losses more than they enjoy equivalent gains. In the Baby Jessica example above, the death of Jessica if she had not been rescued would have been a tragic loss, but the children's lives that might have been saved through preventative health care were framed as gains.
-Studies have found that people respond more to concrete, graphic information than abstract, statistical information.<ref name= "Nisbett, 1980">{{Cite book|title=Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment|last1=Nisbett|first1=Richard|last2=Ross|first2=Lee|publisher=Prentice-Hall|year=1980|isbn=978-0134451305|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/humaninferencest0000nisb}}</ref> Bohnet and Frey (1999)<ref>{{cite journal| date=1999| first1=Iris| last1=Bohnet| first2=Bruno S.| last2=Frey| title=Social distance and other-regarding behavior in dictator games: Comment| journal=The American Economic Review| volume=89| number=1| pages=335–339| doi=10.1257/aer.89.1.335| url=https://booksc.eu/book/61978738/97d32c}}</ref> and Kogut and Ritov (2005)<ref name="Kogut 2005a">{{cite journal| first1=Tehila| last1=Kogut| first2=Ilana| last2=Ritov| journal=Journal of Behavioral Decision Making| volume=18| number=3| pages=157–167| date=2005| url=https://pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il/~msiritov/KogutRitovIdentified.pdf| title=The "Identified Victim" Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual?| doi=10.1002/bdm.492}}</ref> found that vividness contributes to the identifiable victim effect. Another study by Kogut and Ritov (2005)<ref name="Kogut 2005b">{{cite journal| first1=Tehila| last1=Kogut| first2=Ilana| last2=Ritov| journal=Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes| volume=97| number=2| pages=106–116| date=2005| title=The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluation| doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.02.003| url=https://www.academia.edu/15659171}}</ref> found that donations to benefit a needy child increased when the name and a picture of the child were provided. Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997" /> did not observe an effect of vividness.
+* The decision to help an identified victim is made ''ex post'', after the victim is in danger, but the decision to save a statistical victim is often made ''ex ante'', to prevent danger to the individual.<ref name="Weinstein, Shepard, & Pliskin, 1980">{{Cite journal|last1=Weinstein|first1=M|last2=Shepard|first2=D|last3=Pliskin|first3=J|year=1980|title=The Economic Value of Changing Mortality Probabilities: A Decision-Theoretic Approach|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics|volume=94 |issue=2|pages=373–396|doi=10.2307/1884546|jstor=1884546}}</ref> People may feel a responsibility to an actual identified victim<ref name="Douglas, 2017">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-7B2338nHGgC&pg=PR1|title=Risk and Blame|last1=Douglas|first1=Professor Mary|last2=Douglas|first2=Professor of Anthropology Mary|date=2013-06-17|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781136490040|language=en}}</ref> but not to a possible victim of a future tragedy that might not occur. This explanation is closest to what Thomas Schelling implied in his now-famous paper.<br><br>Jenni and Loewenstein (1997)<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> did not find evidence that ''ex post'' vs ''ex ante'' evaluation contributes to the identifiable victim effect, but Small and Lowenstein (2003)<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2003">{{cite journal|first1=Deborah A.| last1=Small| first2=George| last2=Loewenstein| title=Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability| journal=Journal of Risk and Uncertainty| volume=26| number=1| date=January 2003| pages=5–16| doi=10.1023/A:1022299422219| s2cid=207550600| url=https://creativescience.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Helping-a-Victim-or-Helping-the-Victim.pdf}}</ref> did.
-=== Identified vs statistical victims ===
-Some researchers have contrasted an identified victim not with unidentified victims but with statistical victims. They have generally found that identified victims are more likely to be helped than statistical ones.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2003" />
+Indeed, researchers have generally found that identified victims are more likely to be helped than statistical ones.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2003" />
 For example, Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic<ref>{{cite journal | first1=Deborah A.| last1=Small| first2=George| last2=Loewenstein| first3=Paul| last3=Slovic| journal=Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes| volume=102| issue=2| date=March 2007| pages=143–153|title=Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims"| doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.01.005}}</ref> found that subjects donated much more money to help a single starving girl named Rokia than to relieve a famine described statistically.
+== Relation to other cognitive biases ==
-In one of Jenni and Loewenstein's<ref name= "Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997"/> two experiments comparing certain and uncertain deaths, their subjects were significantly more concerned about certain deaths.
+The identifiable victim effect is a special case of a more general phenomenon: people respond to stories more readily than to facts. Kubin et al<ref>{{cite journal| doi=10.1073/pnas.2008389118| last1=Kubin| first1=Emily| last2=Puryear| first2=Curtis| last3=Shein| first3=Chelsea| last4=Gray| first4=Kurt| title=Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts| journal=PNAS| date=2021| volume=118| issue=6| pages=e2008389118| doi-access=free| pmid=33495361| pmc=8017692| bibcode=2021PNAS..11808389K}}</ref> found that people have more respect for their political opponents' opinions when their opponents support their opinions with personal experiences rather than facts. In keeping with the literature on the identifiable victim effect, they found that personal experiences involving harm are particularly effective.
+The preference for helping a single individual rather than a group is sometimes called the singularity effect.<ref name="Kogut 2005b" /><ref name="Erlandsson 2015" /> Indifference to the number of individuals helped is called [[scope neglect]] or scope insensitivity.
-== Implications==
+The identifiable victim effect has a mirror image that is sometimes called the identifiable perpetrator effect.<ref>{{cite web | title=TWO ROUTES TO THE PERCEPTION OF NEED: THE ROLE OF AFFECTIVE VS. DELIBERATIVE INFORMATION PROCESSING IN PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR | url=https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/7232/Stephan_Dickert.pdf | last=Dickert | first = Stephan | date=March 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Psychology of Environmental Law| last1=Rowell| first1=Arden| last2= Bilz| first2=Kenworthey| date=February 2021| chapter=2|page=60| doi=10.18574/nyu/9781479812301.001.0001| publisher=NYU Press| isbn=9781479807574| s2cid=244309090}}</ref>
+Research has shown that individuals are more inclined to mete out punishment, even at their own expense, when they are punishing a specific, identified perpetrator. They also exert more severe punishments and express stronger feelings of blame and anger. Even when the perpetrator is identified only by a number, subjects are more inclined to punish if they know the perpetrator’s number when they decide whether to punish than if they learn the number later.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2005"/> This effect has also been called the “Goldstein effect,” after the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein, who was vilified as the supposed enemy of the state in George Orwell’s dystopian novel [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]].<ref name = "Sunstein">{{cite book|first=Cass R.|last=Sunstein|author-link=Cass R. Sunstein|title=Worst-Case Scenarios|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|date=2009|isbn=978-0-674-03251-4|page=63}}</ref>
+These two effects, of identifiable victims and identifiable perpetrators, suggest that there is a more general identifiable other effect, such that any identified individual evokes a stronger reaction than an equivalent but unidentified individual.<ref name="Small & Loewenstein, 2005" /><ref name="Loewenstein Small Strnad">{{cite web | title=Statistical, Identifiable and Iconic Victims and Perpetrators| last1=Loewenstein| first1=George| last2=Small|first2=Deborah A.|last3=Strnad|first3=Jeff|date=March 7, 2005|url= http://ssrn.com/abstract=678281}}</ref><ref name= "Loewenstein & Small, 2005" />
-=== Public policy ===
-==== Healthcare ====
+== Implications==
+=== Public policy and politics ===
+==== Healthcare ====
 The identifiable victim effect may also influence healthcare, both at the individual and national level.<ref name= "Redelmeir & Tversky, 1990">{{cite journal | last1 = Redelmeir | first1 = D. A. | last2 = Tversky | first2 = A. | year = 1990 | title = Discrepancy between medical decisions for individual patients and for groups | url = https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3840/ba46475c2c8d39bb786d304584cb84ae0a10.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170428052216/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3840/ba46475c2c8d39bb786d304584cb84ae0a10.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2017-04-28 | journal = New England Journal of Medicine | volume = 322 | issue = 16| pages = 1162–1164 | doi=10.1056/nejm199004193221620| pmid = 2320089 | s2cid = 142513619 }}</ref> On the individual level, doctors are more likely to recommend expensive, but potentially life-saving, treatments to an individual patient rather than to a group of patients. This effect is not limited to medical professionals, as laymen demonstrate this same bias towards providing more expensive treatments for individual patients.<ref name= "Redelmeir & Tversky, 1990" /> On the national level, the American people are far more likely to contribute to an expensive treatment to save the life of one person rather than spend much smaller amounts on [[Preventive healthcare|preventative measures]] that could save the lives of thousands per year. A function of American [[individualism]], this nationwide bias towards expensive treatments is still prevalent today.<ref name= "Toufexis & Bjerklie, 1993">{{cite journal | last1 = Toufexis | first1 = A. | last2 = Bjerklie | first2 = D. | year = 1993 | title = The ultimate choice | url = http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/ehost/detail/detail?sid=938602b4-df0c-46ad-9002-c3a01fe3bf00%40sessionmgr4009&vid=1&hid=4214&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=9308240013&db=aph | journal = Time | volume = 142 | issue = 9| pages = 43–4 | pmid = 11645235 }}</ref>
+=====Brady Bill =====
+[[James Brady|James S. Brady]], the then-White House press secretary, was among three collateral damage victims in the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. Brady was explicitly named in reports of the shooting in contrast to the other two injured, a District of Columbia police officer and a Secret Service agent. The political reaction was largely focused on the injuries of Brady which led to the enactment of the [[Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act|Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993]]. It states that it is mandatory for firearm dealers to perform background searches on firearm purchasers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thoughtco.com/brady-act-gun-buyer-background-checks-3321492|title=Brady Act Gun Buyer Background Checks|last=Longley|first=Robert|date=August 23, 2016|website=thoughtco.com}}</ref>
 =====Ryan White Care Act =====
 The need to tackle the problems faced by AIDS sufferers was brought to the political forefront as a result of the legal and social plight of one particular AIDS victim, [[Ryan White]], who contracted [[HIV/AIDS|HIV]] at age 13 and died of AIDS six years later. His circumstances and his campaign for greater funding for AIDS research were widely publicised in the media. Following his death in 1990, the US Congress passed the [[Ryan White Care Act]], which funded the largest set of services for people living with AIDS in the country.<ref name= "Ryan">{{Cite web|url=http://www.dhhr.wv.gov/oeps/std-hiv-hep/HIV_AIDS/caresupport/Pages/RyanWhiteCareAct.aspx|title=Ryan White and Care Act History|website=dhhr.wv.gov|access-date=2017-03-13|archive-date=2021-05-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210523140359/http://dhhr.wv.gov/oeps/std-hiv-hep/HIV_AIDS/caresupport/Pages/RyanWhiteCareAct.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref>
-==== Criminal justice ====
+====Defunding peacekeeping efforts in Darfur====
+In November 2005, the U.S. Congress stripped $50 million from a bill that would have funded peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, where [[Darfur genocide|genocide]] was claiming hundreds of thousands of lives.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/world/world-briefing-africa-sudan-rice-appeals-to-congress-on-darfur.html| title=Rice Appeals to Congress on Darfur| date=December 17, 2005| access-date=May 8, 2023| work=New York Times}}</ref>
+Less than a month earlier, Rosa Parks had passed away. Her casket had lain in state at the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, and many elected officials, including President George W. Bush, had attended her memorial service. Genocide expert Paul Slovic wrote, "We appropriately honor the one, Rosa Parks, but by turning away from the crisis in Darfur we are, implicitly, placing almost no value on the lives of millions there."<ref name="look at the mass" />
-Since the identifiable victim effect can influence punishment, it has the potential to undermine the system of trial by jury.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" /> Jurors, when deliberating, work with an identifiable alleged perpetrator, and thus may attach negative emotions (e.g. disgust, anger) to the individual or assign increased blame when handing down a harsh sentence. Policymakers, who are unable to see the individual offender, being almost entirely emotionally removed, may actually have intended a more lenient sentence. This may produce a harsher verdict than the legal guidelines recommend or allow. On the other extreme, jurors may feel [[sympathy]], relating with the perpetrator on a level not experienced by policymakers, leading to a milder verdict than legally appropriate or allowable.<ref name = "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" />
+==== George Santos' misstatements ====
-Typically in crime investigations, law enforcement forces conceal any information regarding the identities of the suspects until they have strong evidence that the suspects are credible. When identities of suspects are revealed through description of their features or release of their images, media coverage and public discussion on the issue grows. On one side, the public discourse can become increasingly negative and hostile, or, if the perpetrator is sympathetic, support for the perpetrator may grow. This is because people experience a greater emotional reaction towards a concrete, identifiable perpetrator than an abstract, unidentifiable one.<ref name = "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" />
+Republican politician [[George Santos]] was elected to Congress in a formerly Democratic district after falsely claiming that his mother was a [[Casualties of the September 11 attacks|9/11 casualty]] and his maternal grandparents were Jewish Holocaust refugees who had fled [[Soviet Ukraine]] and German-occupied Belgium. Actually, his mother, who died in 2016, was not in the United States on September 11, 2001. <ref>{{cite news|last1=Samu|first1=Sheena|last2=Milton|first2=Tom|last3=Brown|first3=Erica|title=Priest recalls George Santos cries of poverty — saying family could not afford a funeral for his mother|url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-santos-congress-mother-funeral/|publisher=[[WCBS-TV]]|date=December 22, 2022|access-date=December 24, 2022|archive-date=December 23, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221223224941/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-santos-congress-mother-funeral/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Paybarah|first=Azi|title=Records show Rep. George Santos's mother wasn't in New York on 9/11|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/18/santos-mother-sept-11/|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=January 18, 2023|access-date=January 18, 2023|archive-date=January 18, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230118202339/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/18/santos-mother-sept-11/|url-status=live}}</ref> His maternal grandparents actually lived in Brazil. <ref>{{cite news |last=Silverstein |first=Andrew |date=December 21, 2022 |title=Congressman-elect George Santos lied about grandparents fleeing anti-Jewish persecution during WWII |url=https://forward.com/news/529130/george-santos-jewish-lie-genealogy-records/ |work=The Forward |language=en-US |access-date=December 21, 2022 |archive-date=December 21, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221171554/https://forward.com/news/529130/george-santos-jewish-lie-genealogy-records/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Whether Santos would have been elected if he had not made these (and other) misstatements is unknown.
-=====Brady Bill =====
+==== Criminal justice ====
+Since the identifiable victim effect can influence punishment, it has the potential to undermine the system of trial by jury.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" /> Jurors, when deliberating, work with an identifiable alleged perpetrator, and thus may attach [[negative emotion]]s (e.g. disgust, anger) to the individual or assign increased blame when handing down a harsh sentence. Policymakers, who are unable to see the individual offender, being almost entirely emotionally removed, may actually have intended a more lenient sentence. This may produce a harsher verdict than the legal guidelines recommend or allow. On the other extreme, jurors may feel [[sympathy]], relating with the perpetrator on a level not experienced by policymakers, leading to a milder verdict than legally appropriate or allowable.<ref name = "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" />
-[[James Brady|James S. Brady]], the then-White House press secretary, was among three collateral damage victims in the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. Brady was explicitly named in reports of the shooting in contrast to the other two injured, a District of Columbia police officer and a Secret Service agent. The political reaction was largely focused on the injuries of Brady which led to the enactment of the [[Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act|Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993]]. It states that it is mandatory for firearm dealers to perform background searches on firearm purchasers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thoughtco.com/brady-act-gun-buyer-background-checks-3321492|title=Brady Act Gun Buyer Background Checks|last=Longley|first=Robert|date=August 23, 2016|website=thoughtco.com}}</ref>
+Typically in crime investigations, law enforcement forces conceal any information regarding the identities of the suspects until they have strong evidence that the suspects are credible. When identities of suspects are revealed through description of their features or release of their images, media coverage and public discussion on the issue grows. On one side, the public discourse can become increasingly negative and hostile, or, if the perpetrator is sympathetic, support for the perpetrator may grow. This is because people experience a greater emotional reaction towards a concrete, identifiable perpetrator than an abstract, unidentifiable one.<ref name = "Small & Loewenstein, 2005" />
 === Business ethics ===
-According to a 2016 study by Yam and Reynolds, the growing absence of the identifiable victim effect in the business world may contribute to an increase in unethical business behavior.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016">{{cite journal | last1 = Yam | first1 = K. C. | last2 = Reynolds | first2 = S. J. | year = 2016 | title = The effects of victim anonymity on unethical behavior | journal = Journal of Business Ethics | volume = 136 | issue = 1| pages = 13–22 | doi=10.1007/s10551-014-2367-5| s2cid = 144057330 }}</ref> With an increasingly [[Globalization|globalized]] business framework, the identifiable victim effect may become naturally mediated, freeing business leaders and employees alike to engage in unethical behavior without guilt or emotional distress. This may be possible because globalization results in less face-to-face contact, decreasing the identifiability of possible victims. Research suggests that business leaders, as well as workers, are more likely to engage in unethical behavior when the victims of their behavior are anonymous. At the executive level, one possible result of this is worker [[commodification]] and exploitation. At the worker level, employees of a company are possibly more likely to steal from the company or lie on a report if they do not believe this behavior will negatively affect a recognizable coworker. A decrease in recognizable coworkers could thus potentially lead to an increase in unethical behavior by workers.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" /> Research also suggests that outside observers, not only perpetrators, view unethical behavior as less unethical if the victim of the unethical behavior is unidentified.<ref name= "Gino, Shu, & Bazerman, 2010">{{cite journal | last1 = Gino | first1 = F. | last2 = Shu | first2 = L. L. | last3 = Bazerman | first3 = M. H. | year = 2010 | title = Nameless + harmless = blameless: When seemingly irrelevant factors influence judgment of (un)ethical behavior | journal = Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | volume = 111 | issue = 2| pages = 93–101 | doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.11.001}}</ref> This could possibly result in less public outcry against unethical practices in a globalized business environment, where the victims are often unseen.
+Yam and Reynolds<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016">{{cite journal | last1 = Yam | first1 = K. C. | last2 = Reynolds | first2 = S. J. | year = 2016 | title = The effects of victim anonymity on unethical behavior | journal = Journal of Business Ethics | volume = 136 | issue = 1| pages = 13–22 | doi=10.1007/s10551-014-2367-5| s2cid = 144057330 }}</ref> speculated that the growing anonymity of parties to business transactions may contribute to an increase in unethical business behavior. They hypothesized that because of increasing corporate size, the ubiquity of e-commerce, and the commoditization of workers, business executives are less likely to know their employees, customers, and shareholders, and therefore they might be more willing to exploit these unidentified potential victims.
+In one of their experiments, they asked their subjects if they would approve of withholding a drug from the market if releasing it later would bring a greater profit. Their experimental subjects voiced more approval for withholding the drug if all of the victims of the disease the drug treats were unidentified than if one of the victims was named.
-== Moderating factors ==
+Other researchers suggested that outside observers, not only perpetrators, view unethical behavior as less unethical if the victim of the unethical behavior is unidentified.<ref name= "Gino, Shu, & Bazerman, 2010">{{cite journal | last1 = Gino | first1 = F. | last2 = Shu | first2 = L. L. | last3 = Bazerman | first3 = M. H. | year = 2010 | title = Nameless + harmless = blameless: When seemingly irrelevant factors influence judgment of (un)ethical behavior | journal = Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | volume = 111 | issue = 2| pages = 93–101 | doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.11.001}}</ref> This could possibly result in less public outcry against unethical practices in a globalized business environment, where the victims are often unseen.
-=== Attachment anxiety ===
+== Personality differences among potential helpers ==
-High levels of [[Attachment in adults|attachment anxiety]] may increase the power of identifiable victim effect. Research indicates that individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety may donate more to identified victims and donate less to unidentified victims than the average person.<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T. | last2 = Kogut | first2 = E. | year = 2013 | title = Exploring the relationship between adult attachment style and the identifiable victim effect in helping behavior | url = http://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/73400.pdf | journal = Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | volume = 49 | issue = 4| pages = 651–660 | doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2013.02.011}}</ref> According to a study by Kogut and Kogut, attachment anxiety may reduce the expression of [[Altruism|altruistic tendencies]], commonly demonstrated by charitable giving. Researchers hypothesize that this is because anxiously attached individuals focus their time and energy on dealing with their own vulnerabilities, leaving them no mental energy to focus on the well-being of others. However, this would only be true of the unidentified individual. When faced with an identified victim, individuals who are anxiously attached tend to donate more money than the average individual. This aligns with past research indicating that anxiously attached people experience significantly more personal distress than those securely attached when confronted with victims in need.<ref name="Mikulincer et al., 2001">{{cite journal | last1 = Mikulincer | first1 = M. |author2-link=Omri Gillath | last2 = Gillath | first2 = O. | last3 = Halevy | first3 = V. | last4 = Avihou | first4 = N. | last5 = Avidan | first5 = S. |display-authors=etal | year = 2001 | title = Attachment theory and reactions to others' needs: Evidence that activation of the sense of attachment security promotes empathic responses | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 81 | issue = 6| pages = 1205–1224 | doi=10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1205| pmid = 11761318 }}</ref>
+=== Attachment anxiety ===
-Although anxiously attached people may participate in [[prosocial behavior]]s, such as donating money to a charity, their actions are suggested not to be the result of altruistic tendencies, but instead "positively correlated with egoistic, rather than altruistic motives for helping and volunteering".<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013" />{{rp|652}} Thus, researchers hypothesize that anxiously attached individuals are more likely to help identified victims only because they will personally benefit. This is possibly because the identified victim can fulfill the desire for personal attachment, not because the victim is in need. It is important to note that their increased helpfulness only extends to easy, effortless actions, such as donating money. It does not extend to particularly difficult or effortful actions, such as donating time.<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013" />
+High levels of [[Attachment in adults|attachment anxiety]] may increase the power of identifiable victim effect.
-=== Guilt ===
+When presented with an identified victim, individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to donate more money than the average individual.<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T. | last2 = Kogut | first2 = E. | year = 2013 | title = Exploring the relationship between adult attachment style and the identifiable victim effect in helping behavior | url = http://isiarticles.com/bundles/Article/pre/pdf/73400.pdf | journal = Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | volume = 49 | issue = 4| pages = 651–660 | doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2013.02.011}}</ref> Research suggests that anxiously attached people experience significantly more personal distress than those securely attached when confronted with victims in need, so they donate more in order to relieve their distress.<ref name="Mikulincer et al., 2001">{{cite journal | last1 = Mikulincer | first1 = M. |author2-link=Omri Gillath | last2 = Gillath | first2 = O. | last3 = Halevy | first3 = V. | last4 = Avihou | first4 = N. | last5 = Avidan | first5 = S. |display-authors=etal | year = 2001 | title = Attachment theory and reactions to others' needs: Evidence that activation of the sense of attachment security promotes empathic responses | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 81 | issue = 6| pages = 1205–1224 | doi=10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1205| pmid = 11761318 }}</ref>
-Research suggests that guilt reduces the power of the identifiable victim effect.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" /> Before engaging in a behavior, an individual conducts an assessment of the possible emotional outcomes of that behavior. An individual is drawn towards behaviors that would make them happy and repulsed by those that would make them upset. Thus, a person with a high level of guilt is drawn towards altruistic acts because they serve to alleviate the negative emotions that they are experiencing. Consequently, the presence of guilt may actually increase the occurrence of altruistic behavior, such as charitable donations, regardless of whether the victim they are helping is identified or not. Research also suggests that anticipated guilt reduces the occurrence of unethical behavior that may negatively affect an identified victim.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" /> This may be because knowingly and negatively affecting a recognizable victim causes the individual engaging in unethical behavior to experience distress and negative emotions.
+When presented with an unidentified victim, individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to donate less money than the average individual. Research suggests that unidentified victims do not provoke distress, and that anxiously attached people focus on their own vulnerabilities, so that they have less inclination to help unidentified others.
-=== Reasoning style ===
+Although anxiously attached people may participate in [[prosocial behavior]]s, such as donating money to a charity, researchers hypothesize that their actions are not the result of altruistic tendencies, but instead are "positively correlated with egoistic, rather than altruistic motives for helping and volunteering,"<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013" />{{rp|652}} and that anxiously attached people engage in pro-social behavior mainly when strenuous effort is not required.<ref name="Kogut & Kogut, 2013" />
-Research suggests that individual differences in reasoning style moderate the identifiable victim effect.<ref name= "Friedrich & McGuire, 2010">{{cite journal | last1 = Friedrich | first1 = J. | last2 = McGuire | first2 = A. | year = 2010 | title = Individual differences in reasoning style as a moderator of the identifiable victim effect | journal = Social Influence | volume = 5 | issue = 3| pages = 182–201 | doi=10.1080/15534511003707352| s2cid = 143401716 }}</ref> Two different methods of reasoning are “experiential” and “rational”. [[Cognitive-experiential self-theory#Intuitive-experiential system|Experiential thinking]] (e.g. emotionally-based thinking) is automatic, contextual and fluid, and [[Cognitive-experiential self-theory#Analytical-rational system|rational thinking]] (e.g. logically based thinking) is deliberative, analytical, and decontextualized. Experiential thinking styles may increase the power of the identifiable victim effect, and rational thinking styles may decrease the power of the identifiable victim effect. Researchers theorize that these differences result because experiential thinkers rely on emotional responses towards an issue when making a decision. In contrast, rational thinkers analyze the situation as a whole before making a decision. Thus, a person thinking rationally would respond to all victims equally, not giving preference to those specifically named or otherwise identified, just as experiential thinkers would be drawn towards the more emotionally charged identified victim.<ref name= "Friedrich & McGuire, 2010" /> However, research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that identifiable victim effects on public health promoting behaviors were not only undetected, but also not mediated by behavioral tests of reasoning style.<ref name="Byrd 104649">{{Cite journal|last1=Byrd|first1=Nick|last2=Białek|first2=Michał|date=July 2021|title=Your health vs. my liberty: Philosophical beliefs dominated reflection and identifiable victim effects when predicting public health recommendation compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic|journal=Cognition|language=en|volume=212|pages=104649|doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104649|pmid=33756152|pmc=8599940|doi-access=free}}</ref>
-== Criticism ==
+=== Guilt ===
-The identifiable victim effect has been contested in academia. Critics argue that, when a victim is identified, information such as age and gender of the victim are revealed and people are especially sympathetic in response to that information rather than to identifiability ''per se''.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2003" />
+Yam and Reynolds<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" /> investigated the propensity to victimize others. Their experimental subjects harmed unidentified others more than named others, and anticipated that harming named others would provoke more guilt than harming unidentified others. The experimenters did not test whether people who are more prone to feelings of guilt experience the identified victim effect more intensely.
-In 2003, Deborah Small and George Loewenstein conducted an experiment that mitigated this issue. Identifiability was strictly limited to the ''determination'' of the victim's identity.<ref name= "Small & Loewenstein, 2003" /> Therefore, the victim had already been identified regardless of whether the participants had known anything specific about their identity or not. The circumstances of the victim were more palpable and thus elicited greater sympathy from participants. In contrast, the identities of statistical victims were not yet determined. As such, participants found it more difficult to sympathize with indeterminate victims.
-=== Identification ===
+=== Reasoning style ===
+Research suggests that individual differences in reasoning style moderate the identifiable victim effect.<ref name= "Friedrich & McGuire, 2010">{{cite journal | last1 = Friedrich | first1 = J. | last2 = McGuire | first2 = A. | year = 2010 | title = Individual differences in reasoning style as a moderator of the identifiable victim effect | journal = Social Influence | volume = 5 | issue = 3| pages = 182–201 | doi=10.1080/15534511003707352| s2cid = 143401716 }}</ref> Two different methods of reasoning are “experiential” and “rational”. [[Cognitive-experiential self-theory#Intuitive-experiential system|Experiential thinking]] (e.g. emotionally-based thinking) is automatic, contextual and fluid, and [[Cognitive-experiential self-theory#Analytical-rational system|rational thinking]] (e.g. logically based thinking) is deliberative, analytical, and decontextualized. Experiential thinking styles may increase the power of the identifiable victim effect, and rational thinking styles may decrease the power of the identifiable victim effect. Researchers theorize that these differences result because experiential thinkers rely on emotional responses towards an issue when making a decision. In contrast, rational thinkers analyze the situation as a whole before making a decision. Thus, a person thinking rationally would respond to all victims equally, not giving preference to those specifically named or otherwise identified, just as experiential thinkers would be drawn towards the more emotionally charged identified victim.<ref name= "Friedrich & McGuire, 2010" /> However, research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic found that identifiable victim effects on public health promoting behaviors were not only undetected, but also not mediated by behavioral tests of reasoning style.<ref name="Byrd 104649">{{Cite journal|last1=Byrd|first1=Nick|last2=Białek|first2=Michał|date=July 2021|title=Your health vs. my liberty: Philosophical beliefs dominated reflection and identifiable victim effects when predicting public health recommendation compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic|journal=Cognition|language=en|volume=212|pages=104649|doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104649|pmid=33756152|pmc=8599940|doi-access=free}}</ref>
-In certain situations, identification of a victim can actually reduce the amount of help offered to that individual. Research suggests that if an individual is seen as responsible for their plight, people are less likely to offer help than if the victim was not identified at all.<ref name= "Kogut, 2011">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T | year = 2011 | title = Someone to blame: when identifying a victim decreases helping | url = http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/store/10.1002/bdm.492/asset/492_ftp.pdf?v=1&t=j1vk6fsl&s=1a3860951722425fce0c1b7d8c04c57cc7ec8f93 | journal = Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | volume = 47 | issue = 4| pages = 748–755 | doi=10.1016/j.jesp.2011.02.011}}</ref> Most research dedicated to the identifiable victim effect avoids the topic of blame, using explicitly blameless individuals, such as children suffering from an illness.<ref name= "Kogut & Ritov, 2005">{{cite journal | last1 = Kogut | first1 = T. | last2 = Ritov | first2 = I. | year = 2005 | title = The "identified victim" effect: an identified group, or just a single individual? | url = http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/store/10.1002/bdm.492/asset/492_ftp.pdf?v=1&t=j1vk6fsl&s=1a3860951722425fce0c1b7d8c04c57cc7ec8f93 | journal = Journal of Behavioral Decision Making | volume = 18 | issue = 3| pages = 157–165 | doi=10.1002/bdm.492}}</ref> However, there are real-world situations where victims may be seen as to blame for their current situation. For example, in a 2011 study by Kogut, individuals were less likely to offer help to an AIDS victim if the victim had contracted AIDS through sexual contact than if the individual was born with AIDS. In other words, individuals were less likely to offer help to victims if they were seen as at least partially responsible for their plight. A meta-study conducted in 2016 supports these findings, reporting that charitable donations were highest when the victim showed little responsibility for their victimization.<ref name= "2016 meta-analysis" />
-In such cases where [[victim blaming]] is possible, identification of individuals may not induce sympathy and may actually increase negative perception of the victim.<ref name= "Kogut, 2011" /> This reduction in help is even more pronounced if the individual believes in the [[Just-world hypothesis|just world hypothesis]], which is the tendency for people to blame the victim for what has happened to them. This pattern of blame results from a desire to believe that the world is predictable and orderly and that those who suffer must have done something to deserve their suffering.
-=== Individual applicability  ===
-Research may indicate that the identifiable victim effect only affects identified individuals, not identified groups.<ref name= "Kogut & Ritov, 2005" /> A 2005 study by Kogut and Ritov asked participants how much they would be willing to donate to either a critically ill child or a group of eight critically ill children. Although identification of the individual child increased donations, identification of the group of children as a whole did not. Researchers also found that, although both the individual and group evoked similar amounts of empathy, individual victims evoked more emotional distress than groups of victims. Continuing from this, researchers hypothesized that [[Psychological pain|emotional distress]], not empathy, appears to be positively correlated with desire to help, or “willingness to contribute.” This supports the idea that altruistic acts may serve as coping mechanisms to alleviate negative emotions, such as guilt.<ref name= "Yam & Reynolds, 2016" /> This also supports earmelier research that suggests distress and sympathy are the driving emotional factors behind the identifiable victim effect.<ref name= "Erlandsson 2015">{{cite journal | last1 = Erlandsson | first1 = A. | last2 = Björklund | first2 = F. | last3 = Bäckström | first3 = M. | year = 2015 | title = Emotional reactions, perceived impact and perceived responsibility mediate the identifiable victim effect, proportion dominance effect and in-group effect respectively | journal = Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes | volume = 127 | pages = 1–14 | doi=10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.11.003}}</ref>
 == See also ==