IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0148274.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mental Imagery, Impact, and Affect: A Mediation Model for Charitable Giving

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Dickert
  • Janet Kleber
  • Daniel Västfjäll
  • Paul Slovic

Abstract

One of the puzzling phenomena in philanthropy is that people can show strong compassion for identified individual victims but remain unmoved by catastrophes that affect large numbers of victims. Two prominent findings in research on charitable giving reflect this idiosyncrasy: The (1) identified victim and (2) victim number effects. The first of these suggests that identifying victims increases donations and the second refers to the finding that people’s willingness to donate often decreases as the number of victims increases. While these effects have been documented in the literature, their underlying psychological processes need further study. We propose a model in which identified victim and victim number effects operate through different cognitive and affective mechanisms. In two experiments we present empirical evidence for such a model and show that different affective motivations (donor-focused vs. victim-focused feelings) are related to the cognitive processes of impact judgments and mental imagery. Moreover, we argue that different mediation pathways exist for identifiability and victim number effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Dickert & Janet Kleber & Daniel Västfjäll & Paul Slovic, 2016. "Mental Imagery, Impact, and Affect: A Mediation Model for Charitable Giving," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-15, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0148274
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148274
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0148274&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0148274?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jenni, Karen E & Loewenstein, George, 1997. "Explaining the "Identifiable Victim Effect."," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 235-257, May-June.
    2. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:4:p:297-306 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i::p:64-72 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Bartels, Daniel M., 2006. "Proportion dominance: The generality and variability of favoring relative savings over absolute savings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 76-95, May.
    5. Daniel Västfjäll & Paul Slovic & Marcus Mayorga & Ellen Peters, 2014. "Compassion Fade: Affect and Charity Are Greatest for a Single Child in Need," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-10, June.
    6. Kogut, Tehila & Ritov, Ilana, 2005. "The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 106-116, July.
    7. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:7:p:638-650 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Erlandsson, Arvid & Björklund, Fredrik & Bäckström, Martin, 2015. "Emotional reactions, perceived impact and perceived responsibility mediate the identifiable victim effect, proportion dominance effect and in-group effect respectively," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Cryder, Cynthia E. & Loewenstein, George & Scheines, Richard, 2013. "The donor is in the details," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 15-23.
    11. Small, Deborah A. & Loewenstein, George & Slovic, Paul, 2007. "Sympathy and callousness: The impact of deliberative thought on donations to identifiable and statistical victims," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 143-153, March.
    12. Fetherstonhaugh, David & Slovic, Paul & Johnson, Stephen & Friedrich, James, 1997. "Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 283-300, May-June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Russell N. James, 2018. "Increasing charitable donation intentions with preliminary importance ratings," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 15(3), pages 393-411, September.
    2. Arvid Erlandsson, 2021. "Seven (weak and strong) helping effects systematically tested in separate evaluation, joint evaluation and forced choice," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(5), pages 1113-1154, September.
    3. Leily Farrokhvar & Azadeh Ansari & Behrooz Kamali, 2018. "Predictive models for charitable giving using machine learning techniques," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-14, October.
    4. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Bucheli, Marisa & Espinosa, María Paz, 2020. "Altruism and information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    5. Li, Meng-Ran & Yin, Cheng-Yue, 2022. "Facial expressions of beneficiaries and donation intentions of potential donors: Effects of the number of beneficiaries in charity advertising," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    6. Butts, Marcus M. & Lunt, Devin C. & Freling, Traci L. & Gabriel, Allison S., 2019. "Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 16-33.
    7. Abhishek Bhati & Ruth K. Hansen, 2020. "A literature review of experimental studies in fundraising," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(1).
    8. Adalberto Rangone & Luca Busolli, 2021. "Managing charity 4.0 with Blockchain: a case study at the time of Covid-19," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 18(4), pages 491-521, December.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1113-1154 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erlandsson, Arvid & Västfjäll, Daniel & Sundfelt, Oskar & Slovic, Paul, 2016. "Argument-inconsistency in charity appeals: Statistical information about the scope of the problem decrease helping toward a single identified victim but not helping toward many non-identified victims ," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 126-140.
    2. Butts, Marcus M. & Lunt, Devin C. & Freling, Traci L. & Gabriel, Allison S., 2019. "Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 16-33.
    3. Arvid Erlandsson & Fredrik Björklund & Martin Bäckström, 2017. "Choice-justifications after allocating resources in helping dilemmas," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 12(1), pages 60-80, January.
    4. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:60-80 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Arvid Erlandsson, 2021. "Seven (weak and strong) helping effects systematically tested in separate evaluation, joint evaluation and forced choice," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(5), pages 1113-1154, September.
    6. van Esch, Patrick & Cui, Yuanyuan (Gina) & Jain, Shailendra Pratap, 2021. "The effect of political ideology and message frame on donation intent during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 201-213.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1113-1154 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:595-606 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Erlandsson, Arvid & Björklund, Fredrik & Bäckström, Martin, 2015. "Emotional reactions, perceived impact and perceived responsibility mediate the identifiable victim effect, proportion dominance effect and in-group effect respectively," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Cryder, Cynthia E. & Loewenstein, George & Scheines, Richard, 2013. "The donor is in the details," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 15-23.
    11. Shreedhar, Ganga & Mourato, Susana, 2019. "Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Biodiversity Conservation Videos on Charitable Donations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 180-193.
    12. Tehila Kogut & Ruth Beyth-Marom, 2008. "Who helps more? How self-other discrepancies influence decisions in helping situations," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 3(8), pages 595-606, December.
    13. Abhishek Bhati & Ruth K. Hansen, 2020. "A literature review of experimental studies in fundraising," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 3(1).
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:14:y:2019:i:2:p:187-198 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Marta Caserotti & Enrico Rubaltelli & Paul Slovic, 2019. "How decision context changes the balance between cost and benefit increasing charitable donations," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 14(2), pages 187-198, March.
    16. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:5:p:441-448 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Sudeep Bhatia & Lukasz Walasek & Paul Slovic & Howard Kunreuther, 2021. "The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Evidence from Natural Language Analysis of Online News Articles and Social Media Posts," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 179-203, January.
    18. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:4:p:397-406 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Pellegrin, Claire & Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel & Napoleone, Claude, 2018. "Does the Identifiable Victim Effect Matter for Plants? Results From a Quasi-experimental Survey of French Farmers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 106-113.
    20. Huber, Michaela & Van Boven, Leaf & McGraw, A. Peter & Johnson-Graham, Laura, 2011. "Whom to help? Immediacy bias in judgments and decisions about humanitarian aid," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 283-293, July.
    21. Ezra M. Markowitz & Paul Slovic & Daniel Vastfjall & Sara D. Hodges, 2013. "Compassion fade and the challenge of environmental conservation," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(4), pages 397-406, July.
    22. André Mata, 2016. "Proportion dominance in valuing lives: The role of deliberative thinking," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 11(5), pages 441-448, September.
    23. Small, Deborah A., 2010. "Reference-dependent sympathy," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 151-160, July.
    24. Lucius Caviola & Nadira Faulmüller & Jim. A. C. Everett & Julian Savulescu & Guy Kahane, 2014. "The evaluability bias in charitable giving: Saving administration costs or saving lives?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 9(4), pages 303-315, July.
    25. Chang, Chia-Chi & Chen, Po-Yu, 2019. "Which maximizes donations: Charitable giving as an incentive or incentives for charitable giving?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 65-75.
    26. Ehsan Taheri & Chen Wang, 2018. "Eliciting Public Risk Preferences in Emergency Situations," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 223-241, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0148274. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.