Affective motivations to help others: A two‐stage model of donation decisions

Dickert, Stephan; Sagara, Namika; Slovic, Paul

doi:10.1002/bdm.697

Cited by 182 publications

(159 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Yet in the challenging contexts that may seem to require a strong prosocial response-such as disasters and genocides-empathy decreases as the number of victims rises (for a review of this phenomenon, see Cameron, 2017). Empathy appears insensitive to statistical victims (Friedrich & McGuire, 2010;Small, Loewenstein, & Slovic, 2007), and to multiple identified victims (Cameron & Payne, 2011;Dickert, Kleber, Peters, & Slovic, 2011;Dickert, Sagara, & Slovic, 2009;Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Markowitz, Slovic, Västfjäll, & Hodges, 2013;Rubaltelli & Agnoli, 2012;Smith, Faro, & Burson, 2013). These findings have been observed for empathy (Kogut & Ritov, 2005), compassion (Cameron & Payne, 2011;Västfjäll et al, 2014), and prosocial behavior (Galak, Small, & Stephen, 2011;Slovic, Västfjäll, Erlandsson, & Gregory, 2017), and have led some to conclude that empathy is incapable of scaling up.…”

Section: Empathy and Innumeracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

Cameron¹,

Cunningham²,

Saunders³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Empathy, or the ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others, has long been considered by philosophers and scientists to be an important part of human morality. We present a new framework that explains empathy as resulting from motivated decisions. Drawing on models of cybernetic control, value-based choice, and constructionism, we suggest that empathy shifts depending on how people value and prioritize conflicting goals. We generate novel predictions about the nature of empathy from the science of goal pursuit, and address its apparent limitations. Empathy appears less sensitive to suffering of large numbers and out-groups, leading some to suggest that empathy is an unreliable ethical guide. Whereas these arguments assume that empathy is a limited-capacity resource, we suggest that apparent limits of empathy reflect byproducts of domain-general goal pursuit. Arguments against empathy reflect a misguided essentialism: they mistake our own choices to avoid empathy for intrinsic features of empathy, treating empathy as a capricious emotion in conflict with reason. We suggest that empathy results from a rational decision, even if its rationality is bounded, as in many decisions in everyday life. Empathy may only be limited if we choose to avoid pursuing empathic goals.Ends of empathy 3 "Empathy isn't just something that happens to us-a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain-it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, the dowdier cousin of impulse." -Leslie Jamison (2014), The Empathy ExamsIn the summer of 2016, empathy went viral. The world learned about Harambe, a silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo who was shot and killed by zookeepers in an attempt to save the life of a child who had fallen into his enclosure. In the aftermath of the incident, people around the world expressed support for Harambe in a variety of ways, ranging from social media posts to charitable donations to Harambe tattoos. Empathy for Harambe became a meme in its own right. On the other hand, many people appeared to lack empathy for the zookeepers, the child, and the child's mother, to the point that some even issued death threats. This example reveals a broader point about empathy (and the lack thereof): it can feel effortless, contagious, a passion to which we are subject, rather than something we choose or control.Empathy-our ability to understand and resonate with the experiences of others-is typically considered an emotion, which can entail the conceptual baggage that many people associate with emotion. People often see emotions as passions that are out of our control, as something that happen to us. This idea has much precedent. The term derives from the Greek empatheia, which takes feeling or passion (pathos) and directs it at or into (em) someone else;this was adapted to the German Einfühlung ("feeling into"), and translated into English as empathy (Wispe, 1987). These traditions emphasize continuity of empathy with emotions, and in so doing, ca...

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Section: Empathy and Innumeracymentioning

confidence: 99%

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

Cameron¹,

Cunningham²,

Saunders³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although all reviewed articles have made statements about the relative effectiveness of different appeals, they have operationalized appeal effectiveness in different ways. The explicit aim of a charity advertisement is to make people donate money, so the most appropriate way to measure appeal effectiveness (or ad effectiveness) is arguably to measure actual donation behavior and compare the likelihood and/or the magnitude of donations (Dickert, Sagara, & Slovic, 2011). An alternative and cheaper way to investigate the same construct is to measure self-rated donation intention or helping motivation (e.g., "How much would you donate if you read this appeal?").…”

Section: How To Measure Appeal Effectiveness?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes and Donation Behavior When Reading Positive and Negative Charity Appeals

Erlandsson

Nilsson

Västfjäll

2018

Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing

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“…Most importantly, when people consider the issue of ODs, they are confronted with the disturbing thought of their own demise, or that of a relative. Such self-focused emotions (such as distress or fear) have been found to play a major role in the initial decision of whether or not to offer help (19).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of media presentations on willingness to commit to organ donation

Harel

Kogut

Pinchas

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

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We examine how presentations of organ donation cases in the media may affect people's willingness to sign organ donation commitment cards, donate the organs of a deceased relative, support the transition to an "opt-out" policy, or donate a kidney while alive. We found that providing identifying information about the prospective recipient (whose life was saved by the donation) increased the participants' willingness to commit to organ donation themselves, donate the organs of a deceased relative, or support a transition to an "opt-out" policy. Conversely, identifying the deceased donor tended to induce thoughts of death rather than about saving lives, resulting in fewer participants willing to donate organs or support measures that facilitated organ donation. A study of online news revealed that identification of the donor is significantly more common than identification of the recipient in the coverage of organ donation cases-with possibly adverse effects on the incidence of organ donations.organ donation | identifiable victim effect | organ donation policy decisions | prosocial decisions

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Affective motivations to help others: A two‐stage model of donation decisions

Cited by 182 publications

References 47 publications

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

The ends of empathy: Constructing empathy from value-based choice

Attitudes and Donation Behavior When Reading Positive and Negative Charity Appeals

Effect of media presentations on willingness to commit to organ donation

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