Genocide Prevention Initiativehttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/189292024-03-28T15:34:46Z2024-03-28T15:34:46ZWhoever Saves One Life Saves the World: Confronting the Challenge of PseudoinefficacyVastfjall, DanielSlovic, PaulMayorga, Marcushttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/284622023-06-29T07:31:55Z2014-01-01T00:00:00ZWhoever Saves One Life Saves the World: Confronting the Challenge of Pseudoinefficacy
Vastfjall, Daniel; Slovic, Paul; Mayorga, Marcus
In a great many situations where we are asked to aid persons whose lives are endangered,
we are not able to help everyone. What do we then do? In a series of experiments, we first
demonstrate that donors, in general, become demotivated by information about children who
cannot be helped. We find that negative affect from the children not helped decreases the warm
glow associated with aiding the children who can be helped. This demotivation may be a form of
“pseudoinefficacy” that is nonrational. We should not be deterred from helping whomever we
can because there are others we are not able to help. Second, we show that people react in two
ways to such requests. Some feel less good about helping those they can help and they help less.
Others feel badly because of those “out of reach” and they become even more motivated to help
whomever they can. We discuss the need to better understand these two different reactions and
we suggest strategies to reduce the demotivating effects of pseudoinefficacy.
26 pages
2014-01-01T00:00:00ZIconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disastersSlovic, PaulVastfjall, DanielErlandsson, ArvidGregory, Robinhttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/284612023-06-29T07:31:55Z2017-01-10T00:00:00ZIconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters
Slovic, Paul; Vastfjall, Daniel; Erlandsson, Arvid; Gregory, Robin
The power of visual imagery is well known, enshrined in such
familiar sayings as “seeing is believing” and “a picture is worth a
thousand words.” Iconic photos stir our emotions and transform
our perspectives about life and the world in which we live. On
September 2, 2015, photographs of a young Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi,
lying face-down on a Turkish beach, filled the front pages of newspapers
worldwide. These images brought much-needed attention to
the Syrian war that had resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths
and created millions of refugees. Here we present behavioral data
demonstrating that, in this case, an iconic photo of a single child had
more impact than statistical reports of hundreds of thousands of
deaths. People who had been unmoved by the relentlessly rising
death toll in Syria suddenly appeared to care much more after having
seen Aylan’s photograph; however, this newly created empathy
waned rather quickly.We briefly examine the psychological processes
underlying these findings, discuss some of their policy implications,
and reflect on the lessons they provide about the challenges to effective
intervention in the face of mass threats to human well-being.
5 pages
2017-01-10T00:00:00ZPsychic Numbing and Mass AtrocitySlovic, PaulZionts, DavidWoods, Andrew K.Goodman, RyanJinks, Derekhttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/284602023-06-29T07:31:56Z2013-01-01T00:00:00ZPsychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity
Slovic, Paul; Zionts, David; Woods, Andrew K.; Goodman, Ryan; Jinks, Derek
The twentieth century is often said to have been the
bloodiest century in recorded history. In addition
to its wars, it witnessed many grave and widespread
human rights abuses. But what stands out in historical
accounts of those abuses, perhaps even more than
the cruelty of their perpetration, is the inaction of bystanders.
Why do people and their governments repeatedly
fail to react to genocide and other mass-scale
human rights violations?
There is no simple answer to this question. It is
not because people are insensitive to the suffering of
their fellow human beings-witness the extraordinary
efforts an individual will expend to rescue a person in
distress. It is not because people only care about identifiable
victims of similar skin color who live nearby:
witness the outpouring of aid from the north to the
victims of the December 2004 tsunami in Southeast
Asia. Nor can the blame be apportioned entirely
to political leaders. Although President George W.
Bush was unresponsive to the murder of hundreds of
thousands of people in Darfur, it was his predecessor,
President Bill Clinton, who ignored the genocide in
Rwanda, and President Franldin D. Roosevelt who for
too long did little to stop the Holocaust. The American
example of inaction has been largely repeated in
other countries as well. Behind every leader who ignored
mass murder were millions of citizens whose
indifference allowed the inaction to pass.
18 pages
2013-01-01T00:00:00Z“Statistics Don’t Bleed”: Rhetorical Psychology, Presence, and Psychic Numbing in Genocide PedagogyFrank, David A.Slovic, PaulVastfjall, Danielhttps://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/284592023-06-29T07:31:52Z2011-01-01T00:00:00Z“Statistics Don’t Bleed”: Rhetorical Psychology, Presence, and Psychic Numbing in Genocide Pedagogy
Frank, David A.; Slovic, Paul; Vastfjall, Daniel
Desperate to make present the unfolding Holocaust in central Europe,
Arthur Koestler in a 1944 article in the New York Times Magazine
grouped himself with the "screamers" who were unheard as millions were
murdered in the concentration camps. Seeking to explain why "a dog run
over by a car upsets our emotional balance and digestion; three million
Jews killed in Poland cause but a moderate uneasiness," Koestler
observed: "Statistics don't bleed; it is the detail which counts. We are
unable to embrace the total process of our awareness; we can only focus
on little lumps of reality" ( Yogi92). Matthew J. Newcomb struggles in his
classroom and recent article, "Feeling the Vulgarity of Numbers: The
Rwandan Genocide and the Classroom as a Site of Response to Suffering,"
with the problem he, Koestler, and a host of others face when
attempting to move people to moral action in response to trauma that may
seem beyond the pale of representation.
16 pages
2011-01-01T00:00:00Z