Why we help others, not always not everyone

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Why We Help Others
Not always, not everyone

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Baby Jessica Saga in 1987
• Jessica McClure, an 18 month old girl fell into
a 22 feet abandoned well
• What followed is a huge media coverage(for
weeks)
• The whole world watched every step in rescue
effort.
• There was a tearful relief after rescue made by
a parallel shaft.

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What happened after?
• This brought people
together.
• McClure family received
more than $700,000 in charity.
• Jessica and her parents suffered a lot, having been
through this.
• There was a movie called Everybody's Baby based on
this.
• Now you've seen how did people react to this.

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Well, how did people react to this?
• There was a genocide in Rwanda.
• 800,000 people were brutally murdered (including
babies)
• Did baby Jessica get more CNN coverage than the
genocide? May be, yes(there's nothing wrong about
that)
• So, why did we not feel the same for mass killings?
• Its a question of why we feel more inclined to
suffering by one person more than tragedies suffered
by more people.

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Its a question to be answered and you can find it here.
Do we really not care about a tragedy as the number of
sufferer increases?
Why did I make this presentation? I think its important to
understand what drives us and our behavior.
"One man's death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a
statistic“ – Joseph Stalin
"If I look at the mass, I will
never act. If I look at one, I
will“ – Mother Teresa

6. The Identifiable Victim Effect
An experiment carried out by Deborah Small(Prof at
University of Pennsylvania)
Given a sum of money($5) and asked to donate some
amount to two conditions:
1. A Statistical condition (Food shortages effect 3 million
children in Malawi and collective statistics like this)
2. An identifiable condition (A girl who is suffering and it
reads that you can change her life as a result of your
financial gift and more)

7. Identifiable
condition
Statistical
condition
Results
Donation to statistical condition(23%) was half that of
identifiable condition (48%)
We have empathy towards a sufferer whom we can see,
feel their pain and know more details.
Unfortunately we don't feel the same when sufferers are
not individualized.

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Who is implementing identifiable victim
effect?
American Cancer society uses the same in its
campaigns.
They use a powerful word "survivor" that identifies a
person who has survived a cancer.
A survivor is anyone who can create a network of
sympathetic people who can act as the
"identifiable" .
Individuals connected to a survivor are motivated to
give their help to the ACS. A good
cause indeed!

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Closeness, Vividness and the "Drop-in-the-
Bucket" Effect.
Assume you are on your way to your dream job
with a new suit and while crossing a bridge you
find a girl who had fallen into water unable to
swim, just a few feet away.
You are a good swimmer and there's no time to
remove your clothes.
All of us put in this situation would jump into the
water not thinking about $1000 suit and the
dream job interview. It’s a human life at stake.

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Three Psychological
factors
Drop-in-
the
bucket
effect
Proximity
Vividness

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It is possible to lend your hand to a person in
need, who is near you.

12. Vividness - You can feel the pain and see
it.
there's vagueness when you are told 3
million children die of starvation in Malawi
in Africa.

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Drop-in-the-bucket-effect
Your ability and faith in you to help a
victim, it is completely possible to save the
girl now.
People don't care much about water borne
diseases killing millions annually.

14. Thinking about the girl - Another perspective.
Would you have helped the girl if she was in a third
world nation contracting malaria?
Would you have the same motivation to save the
girl?
Its not that we are hard hearted humans who would
not help.
It is just because the problems are far away, out of
our control and takes a lot of effort
by many people to solve the malaria problem.
We feel less emotional, less vividness in realizing
the situation. Hence lesser motivation to help.

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Some solutions
People act only when the problem is
personalized.
This behavior does not help solve
large problems that face planet
Earth.
Do you care about 1 Degree increase
in temperature?
So, when you hear about a thousand
victims of a flood, think an individual
(say a small kid) who lost his parents.
This can get you to act!
Can change in moral principles
happen?

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www.slideshare.net/NivashKumar
This presentation is a summary of Chapter 9 of Dan Ariely's book
"The upside of irrationality", I strongly recommend you read this book if you like the stuff
in this presentation. All credits to Dan Ariely and his collaborators for having done
remarkable work in his book.