The effects of group memberships of victims and perpetrators in humanly caused disasters on charitable donations to victims

Abstract

The effects of group memberships of disaster victims and perpetrators on charitable donations were measured. In Study 1 (N 5 92), victim group membership was experimentally varied to demonstrate an ingroup bias. In Study 2 (N 5 84), a similar bias was demonstrated by varying perpetrator group membership. In Study 3 (N 5 182), both victim and perpetrator group memberships were assessed. Perpetrator group membership interacted with victim group membership.Moreover, donations were highest when both victims and perpetrators shared a group membership. These effects were mediated by empathy with the victims, and perceived responsibility of the donor to intervene and aid the victim. Findings show that a salient perpetrator group can be harnessed to encourage helping of disaster victims. ness in one's national group can facilitate outgroup helping (van Leeuwen, 2007); while recategorization of the outgroup to a common 446 | V C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jasp

Opportunity Cost in Monetary Donation Decisions to Non-identified and Identified Victims

“…For example, we found this effect for scenarios depicting children, but not for adult victims. Further, we found that children (compared to adults) elicited higher ratings of attractiveness, neediness and evoked sympathy, which is in line with research showing that children and perceived innocence of the victims are predictors of the identifiable victim effect (Kogut, 2011;Lee and Feeley, 2016;James and Zagefka, 2017). However, future research should investigate the child-adult difference in the identifiable victim effect by keeping factors such as the donation scenario constant.…”

Triadic intergroup relations: Studying situations with an observer, an actor, and a recipient of behavior

“…As is evident, although Act ≠ Rec is inevitably constant across conditions, Obs–Act and Obs–Rec are conflated. James and Zagefka () opted to manipulate the Obs–Act and the Obs–Rec relations independently from each other in a 2 (Obs = Act vs. Obs ≠ Act) × 2 (Obs = Rec vs. Obs ≠ Rec) design. In other words, one factor manipulated whether the perpetrator shared the participant's (observer's) group membership, and the other factor manipulated whether the victim shared the participant's group member.…”

“…Expressed formally, what is compared is Scenario 2 (Obs = Act and Obs ≠ Rec, which by necessity implies Act ≠ Rec) with Scenario 3 (Obs ≠ Act and Obs = Rec, which by necessity implies Act ≠ Rec). As is evident, although Act ≠ Rec is inevitably constant across conditions, Obs-Act and Obs-Rec are conflated James and Zagefka (2017). opted to manipulate the Obs-Act and the Obs-Rec relations independently from each other in a 2 (Obs = Act vs. Obs ≠ Act) × 2 (Obs = Rec vs. Obs ≠ Rec) design.…”

Toward a triadic understanding of charitable giving: how donors, beneficiaries, fundraisers, and social contexts influence donation decisions

“…T. K. James and Zagefka (2017) demonstrate this preference for helping ingroup victims in a series of vignette studies that piped in the participant's own country (vs. a fictional country) and invited donations to disaster victims. In their third study, for example, participants reported they would hypothetically make a £5.59 donation when they thought the victims were from their own country, compared to only £3.86 when victims were from another country.…”

“…Identities also inform who receives help. Donors are more willing to give when they perceive the beneficiary to be similar to them, particularly when a shared identity is salient (Charnysh et al, 2015; T. K. James & Zagefka, 2017;M. Levine et al, 2005).…”