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.
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.
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".
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 incorrectly, attributed to Stalin. 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.
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. 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.
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.
Murder of George Floyd The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in May, 2020 led to worldwide protests against police brutality. Almost 1,000 people are killed in the U.S. by police every year, and a black male is 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police as a white male. However, people tend to be upset with specific instances of suffering, rather than larger trends.
Strength of the effect Meta-analysis of experimental evidence A meta-analysis 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.
On the other hand, extremely subtle experimental manipulations may yield significant effects. For example, Small and Loewenstein 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 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.
Studies have found that people respond more to concrete, graphic information than abstract, statistical information. Bohnet and Frey (1999) and Kogut and Ritov (2005) found that vividness contributes to the identifiable victim effect. Another study by Kogut and Ritov (2005) found that donations to benefit a needy child increased when the name and a picture of the child were provided. Jenni and Loewenstein (1997) 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. 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. In a group of two or more victims, identifying every victim makes no difference. For example, 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 identifying the individual child increased donations, identifying every child in the group of eight did not.
Paul Slovic 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.
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. Most research dedicated to the identifiable victim effect avoids the topic of blame, using explicitly blameless individuals, such as children suffering from an illness. 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.
In such cases where victim blaming is possible, identification of individuals may not induce sympathy and may actually increase negative perception of the victim. 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 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 for the victim and more distress at the victim's plight, along with more willingness to help.
Kogut and Ritov, 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.
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. For example, Fetherstonhaugh et al 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 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.
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 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.