Empathic and Numerate Giving: The Joint Effects of Victim Images and Charity Evaluation

Abstract

Helping behaviors are often driven by emotional reactions to the suffering of particular individuals, but these behaviors do not seem to be upregulated when many people need help. In this paper we consider if these reactions are also “innumerate” to information about how charities spend their money. Across six experiments we examined how images of identified victims interact with information about charity efficiency (money toward program) and effectiveness (program outcome). We further examined if the images primarily get people to donate (yes/no), while efficiency/effectiveness might provide a tuning mechanism for how much to give. Results showed that images influenced the propensity to donate and induced participants donate their full bonuses, indicating heuristic effects. Efficiency and effectiveness information had no effects on donations.