People often give somewhat more to a single identifiable victim than to an equivalent statistical one, though the effect is modest and condition-dependent.
Schelling's 1968 essay contrasted the resources mobilised for a named trapped child against those for statistical lives saved by road safety, and Small, Loewenstein and Slovic supplied experimental evidence in 2007. The average effect is modest and condition-dependent, and charity fundraising has operated on it regardless.
In practice
- An appeal for one named child raises more than the identical appeal for four thousand.
- A safety case for a named worker's exposure moves a board that the aggregate statistic did not.
- Standing
- The researched mechanism behind the tragedy-and-statistic adage.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- The catalogue of predictable errors