The habituation fallacy: Disaster victims who are repeatedly victimised are assumed to suffer less, and they are helped less

Abstract

This paper tests the effects of lay beliefs that disaster victims who have been victimised by other events in the past will cope better with a new adverse event than first‐time victims. It is shown that believing that disaster victims can get habituated to suffering reduces helping intentions towards victims of repeated adversity, because repeatedly victimised victims are perceived to be less traumatised by a new adverse event. In other words, those who buy into habituation beliefs will impute less trauma and suffering to repeated victims compared to first‐time victims, and they will therefore feel less inclined to help those repeatedly victimised victims. This was demonstrated in a series of six studies, two of which were preregistered (total N = 1010). Studies 1, 2, and 3 showed that beliefs that disaster victims become habituated to pain do indeed exist among lay people. Such beliefs are factually inaccurate, because repeated exposure to severe adversity makes it harder, not easier, for disaster victims to cope with a new negative event. Therefore, we call this belief the ‘habituation fallacy’. Studies 2, 3, and 4 demonstrated an indirect negative effect of a belief in the ‘habituation fallacy’ on ‘helping intentions’, via lesser ‘trauma’ ascribed to victims who had previously been victimised. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that a belief in the ‘habituation fallacy’ causally affects trauma ascribed to, and helping intentions towards, repeatedly victimised victims, but not first‐time victims. The habituation fallacy can potentially explain reluctance to donate to humanitarian causes in those geographical areas that frequently fall prey to disasters.

It will (never) stop hurting: Do repeated or chronic experiences of exclusion lead to hyper- or hyposensitive psychological responses?

“…Importantly, coping strategies against the impact of exclusion should be not only effective but also healthy in the long run since not all effective strategies may be beneficial for the target; for example, taking pain killers (e.g., DeWall, MacDonald et al, 2010 ), smoking cigarettes or marijuana (e.g., Deckman et al, 2014 ; DeWall & Pond, 2011 ), or drinking alcohol (e.g., Hales et al, 2015 ; Sprunger et al, 2020 ; but see also Fairbairn et al, 2021 ). Moreover, research on post-traumatic stress ( Brewin et al, 2000 ) and research on victims of natural disasters ( Zagefka, 2022 ) show that having to deal with adversities multiple times makes it harder to cope with new adverse experiences. In contrast, lay beliefs hold that victims will habituate to dealing with adversity, becoming hyposensitive over time.…”

“…In contrast, lay beliefs hold that victims will habituate to dealing with adversity, becoming hyposensitive over time. This belief, in turn, decreases the willingness to help victims ( Zagefka, 2022 ). If the same is true for beliefs about excluded targets’ coping capacity, accurate information about how hurtful the experience of exclusion is for targets every time it occurs could help to raise awareness among bystanders and sources of exclusion.…”

Whether a religious group membership is shared and salient influences perceived similarity, political support, and helping intention toward refugees, but not charitable donation

“…Studying how visual portrayals of refugees in the media contribute to perceptions of similarity can especially be a good starting point for this as there is already a growing line of research showing the importance of pictures in shaping how people perceive refugees (e.g., Azevedo et al, 2021; Slovic et al, 2017). In addition, narratives that are used in the media can also feed into how people assess the trauma and suffering of victims and then, intend to help them, with victims who are repeatedly traumatized being perceived as suffering less (Zagefka, 2022). Therefore, future studies could compare helping responses towards different groups of refugees to understand if refugees from more troubled regions would be helped less because of a habituation fallacy.…”

‘Are they refugees or economic migrants?’ The effect of asylum seekers' motivation to migrate on intentions to help them

“…Therefore, the potential for greater contact with Ukrainians compared to Syrians may have caused their prejudices against Ukrainians to lessen. Thirdly, victims of repeated adversity are believed to suffer less; and this affects people's decisions to help victims of repeated adversity (Zagefka, 2022). It is possible that Syrians are perceived as having suffered repeated adversity more so than Ukrainians.…”