The psychology of charity

came across three interesting articles recently regarding what factors influence charitable donation.

The most unsurprising finding was that knowing someone with a similar issue would make people more likely to donate to a related charity but it was interesting that this seemed to simply focus their sympathy on certain areas, not increase their sympathy overall.

What was more interesting was the evidence that even though highlighting the personal/individual nature of a victim it was only really effective if the intended audience could identify with that victim. Otherwise such an approach was actually less effective than a more general marketing campaign.

But most thought provoking of all was the evidence from another study that even in cases of clear disaster, our charitable instincts are also infused with a desire to attribute blame.

Dr Hanna Zagefka, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, explains: "In line with the 'Just World Belief' hypothesis, people have an inherent need to believe that the world is just, and so the suffering of innocents calls into question this just world belief. In order to protect it, people try to construe suffering as just whenever possible, and generally humanly caused events provide more opportunity for victim blame than naturally caused events. In addition, the research shows that victims of natural disasters are generally also perceived to make more of an effort to help themselves, and people like to 'reward' those who are proactive by donating to them."

This is interesting stuff, since it shows how even charity is not a simple case of wanting to do good - but like all moral behaviour infused with our own sense of identity and justice. Such attitudes are of course crucial to normal moral judgement of peoples actions, but while we would rationally think we don't apply them to obvious cases of misfortune such as natural disasters or impact of wars, we emotionally still do.

The significance of this is twofold. It means that even charitable individuals should always be ready to appraise their behaviour, and secondly that charities themselves need to put more thougth and focus into their campaigns.

I also wonder does it apply to other areas in society where 'how much we care' sometimes seems to be quite irrational. For example the difference in emphasis between say the rarity of a plane crash, and the constant carnage on our roads. It always amazes me that society is prepared to put the time and resources into something like airport security, but not for example bring in laws whereby cars won't start if seatbelts aren't on, or if the driver hasn't blown into an onboard breathalyzer. Such measures, though not cheap, would pale in cost and effort in comparison to some other 'high profile' safety measures we willingly enforce, and yet would probably result in many more lives saved.

Apart from the normal psychological ideas of 'availability' (if a plane crash happens anywhere in the world we see it on the news and thus subconcsiously think they happen often) and 'habituation' (we hear of road deaths so often we just tune out) I think there is also for these areas a background influence from this 'Just world' idea. There is something particularly helpless about an individual in a plane crash, so it would be unusual if we judged them to blame for it. In contrast, road accidents always involve action as well as luck, and so even when we don't know the details, we might assume there was still some 'fault' involved. Apart from how much we care about how these issues affect others I think such reasoning is then also involved in how we consider the risk to ourselves. Our chances of dieing in a car crash are much higher than a lot of other things, but we probably think it won't happen to us, because we think we would be in control. of course the reality of most car accidents is the opposite, but we don't normally appreciate that.

Again this has relevance for us at a personal level (how we evaluate risk, appropriate blame) but also at a societal one. Maybe news reports of car crashes, disease outbreaks etc. should also learn from these studies, and for example highlight the unpreventable and unlucky sides to the stories.
It can only help...

Whose space is it anyway

(this might belong more in my "random thoughts" page, but am posting it here since I think our online presence is now a real element of our society, and maybe even our psychology)

There's been a lot of talk recently about the demise of My Space, eclipsed as it now is by the behemoth that is Facebook. Initially I admit my attitude was more of a "good riddance to bad rubbish", since I never really liked the site, and although I did register, think abandoned it pretty much from the start. Having read some recent articles though, like this one , I've changed my mind somewhat, and would agree that its fall from grace is a loss for the web, but also says something about how it is evolving, and maybe not for the good.

The point made is that My Space pages were much more unique and personal than Facebook pages are. This meant a lot of them were pretty confusing, even awful, but I realise now that at least the setup encouraged an independent and distinct self-expression, which Facebook doesn't. Instead there's more of a box ticking approach, pidgeon-holing us all into pre- selected (and marketable) classes ( This is another relevant article ). And as Facebook becomes more and more the default everybody, this is something to ponder. It could be of the way the internet is starting to "solidify" into a few basic streams, losing its earlier swirling flexibility. Like in the way the use of app stores might replace general searching of the webb at large, this might be another example of people starting to "settle down" with some limited set technologies, and , since these technologies work for them, they look for and try out new things less, and their horizons slowly narrow. Whether this is really happening is debatable, but it is indeed possible, and worthth of investigation. It would make sense too, that as the majority come online, the web dynamic changes, since most people will be just joining by default at it were, and will just want to quickly join in with the main activities that are already ongoing, and that everybody else is doing. This would be in contrast to the earlier days of the web,when most of those involved would have had the awareness of, and zeal for, the openness and mutability of it all. The earlier generations would have been younger, or involved in the "new" economy or other areas that would have let them experience the web as a place of constant change and possibility, and in retrospect the idea of carving out "my space" in cyber space fitted well with that. Joining Facebook is now I think more about checking in to a"communal" space, and hence the orientation is different. Not that it isn't good in its own right - "community" is good, even online ones-but something is lost in the uniform homogeneity.

My Space was really more of a personal website or blog hoster, not a standardized notice board like Facebook. Ironically that was why I didn't like, but not because of what it tried to do, but because it didn't do it well enough. Ever since I've had decent constant internet access, since say,1997, I've tried to maintain my own web page, and at the time geocities or whatever suited me better. However, at least My Space tried to foster that general idea of each poison having their own "site", and I'm not aware of any major trend that replaces it in that respect.

Though, actually, there are plenty of free simple web hosting sites, (i use one myself!), so it is probably more to do with the prevailing will of the web, not the means.

I guess just like not everyone wants to write their own book, not everyone wants to create their own piece of space in the digital/social domain. What My Space represents though is the fact that, thanks to the internet, in both cases, everyone now can,and long may this continue. My Space may be dead, but long live our spaces!

Posted from phone via Blogaway (so excuse any typos!)