IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v115y2011i2p283-293.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Whom to help? Immediacy bias in judgments and decisions about humanitarian aid

Author

Listed:
  • Huber, Michaela
  • Van Boven, Leaf
  • McGraw, A. Peter
  • Johnson-Graham, Laura

Abstract

People exhibit an immediacy bias when making judgments and decisions about humanitarian aid, perceiving as more deserving and donating disproportionately to humanitarian crises that happen to arouse immediate emotion. The immediacy bias produced different serial position effects, contingent on decision timing (Experiment 1). When making allocation decisions directly after viewing to four emotionally evocative films about four different humanitarian crises, participants donated disproportionately more to the final, immediate crisis, in contrast, when making donation decisions sequentially, after viewing each of the four crises, participants donated disproportionately to the immediate crisis. The immediacy bias was associated with "scope neglect," causing people to take action against relatively less deadly crises (Experiments 2 and 3). The immediacy bias emerged even when participants were warned about emotional manipulation (Experiment 3). The immediacy bias diminished over time, as immediate emotions presumably subsided (Experiment 2). Implications for charitable giving, serial position effects, and the influence of emotion on choice are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:115:y:2011:i:2:p:283-293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597811000446
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kahneman, Daniel & Ritov, Ilana & Schkade, David A, 1999. "Economic Preferences or Attitude Expressions?: An Analysis of Dollar Responses to Public Issues," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 203-235, December.
    2. Pham, Michel Tuan & Avnet, Tamar, 2009. "Contingent reliance on the affect heuristic as a function of regulatory focus," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 267-278, March.
    3. Read, Daniel & van Leeuwen, Barbara, 1998. "Predicting Hunger: The Effects of Appetite and Delay on Choice, , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 189-205, November.
    4. Payne, John W & Schkade, David A. & Desvousges, William H. & Aultman, Chris, 2000. "Valuation of Multiple Environmental Programs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 95-115, July.
    5. Friestad, Marian & Wright, Peter, 1994. "The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 1-31, June.
    6. Small, Deborah A & Loewenstein, George, 2003. "Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 5-16, January.
    7. Dhar, Ravi & Sherman, Steven J, 1996. "The Effect of Common and Unique Features in Consumer Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 23(3), pages 193-203, December.
    8. Kahneman, Daniel & Schkade, David & Sunstein, Cass R, 1998. "Shared Outrage and Erratic Awards: The Psychology of Punitive Damages," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 49-86, April.
    9. Van Boven, Leaf & Loewenstein, George & Dunning, David, 2005. "The illusion of courage in social predictions: Underestimating the impact of fear of embarrassment on other people," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 130-141, March.
    10. 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.
    11. Mantel, Susan Powell & Kardes, Frank R, 1999. "The Role of Direction of Comparison, Attribute-Based Processing, and Attitude-Based Processing in Consumer Preference," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(4), pages 335-352, March.
    12. Moore, Don A., 1999. "Order Effects in Preference Judgments: Evidence for Context Dependence in the Generation of Preferences, ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 146-165, May.
    13. Loewenstein, George, 1996. "Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 272-292, March.
    14. McGraw, A. Peter & Todorov, Alexander & Kunreuther, Howard, 2011. "A policy maker's dilemma: Preventing terrorism or preventing blame," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 25-34, May.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i::p:18-27 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Sunstein, Cass R, 2003. "Terrorism and Probability Neglect," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(2-3), pages 121-136, March-May.
    20. Bruine de Bruin, Wandi & Keren, Gideon, 2003. "Order effects in sequentially judged options due to the direction of comparison," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 91-101.
    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. Stephan Dickert & Janet Kleber & Ellen Peters & Paul Slovic, 2011. "Numeracy as a precursor to pro-social behavior: The impact of numeracy and presentation format on the cognitive mechanisms underlying donation decisions," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 6(7), pages 638-650, October.
    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. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:5:p:1113-1154 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. George, Jennifer M. & Dane, Erik, 2016. "Affect, emotion, and decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 47-55.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:7:p:638-650 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Philp, Matthew & Mantonakis, Antonia, 2020. "Guiding the consumer evaluation process and the probability of order-effects-in-choice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 13-22.
    7. Hagit Sabato & Tehila Kogut, 2021. "Happy to help—if it’s not too sad: The effect of mood on helping identifiable and unidentifiable victims," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-15, June.

    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. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:1:p:60-80 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Small, Deborah A., 2010. "Reference-dependent sympathy," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 151-160, July.
    9. Paul Slovic & Melissa L. Finucane & Ellen Peters & Donald G. MacGregor, 2004. "Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feelings: Some Thoughts about Affect, Reason, Risk, and Rationality," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 311-322, April.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:595-606 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Pham, Michel Tuan & Avnet, Tamar, 2009. "Contingent reliance on the affect heuristic as a function of regulatory focus," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 267-278, March.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. Ben Greiner & Werner Güth & Ro’i Zultan, 2012. "Social communication and discrimination: a video experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 398-417, September.
    18. Ehsan Taheri & Chen Wang, 2018. "Eliciting Public Risk Preferences in Emergency Situations," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 223-241, December.
    19. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:4:p:397-406 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Danijela Vuletic, 2015. "How Effective are Reminders and Frames in Incentivizing Blood Donations," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp554, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    21. Slovic, Paul & Finucane, Melissa & Peters, Ellen & MacGregor, Donald G., 2002. "Rational actors or rational fools: implications of the affect heuristic for behavioral economics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 329-342.
    22. Pham, Michel Tuan & Faraji-Rad, Ali & Toubia, Olivier & Lee, Leonard, 2015. "Affect as an ordinal system of utility assessment," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 81-94.
    23. 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.

    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:eee:jobhdp:v:115:y:2011:i:2:p:283-293. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    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.