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A Psychologist Explains the Limits of Human Compassion

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difference between, say, $0 and $100 feels greater than the difference between $100 and $200. If you’re talking about $5,800 or $5,900 — [both] seem the same, even though it’s still $100 difference

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

wondered] if that applied to lives.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

means that there is no constant value for a human life, that the value of a single life diminishes against the backdrop of a larger tragedy.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

this what you call psychic numbing? The larger number of people, the more apathy. Paul Slovic Yes. And the opposite side of that is something we call the singularity effect, which is an individual life is very valued

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

We all go to great lengths to protect a single individual or to rescue someone in distress, but then as the numbers increase, we don’t respond proportionally to that.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

day after that photograph appeared, donations went from $8,000 to $430,000 — because of the photograph. Then we could see over time how … it stayed elevated for about a month or so, and then it went back [down].

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

dramatic stories of individuals or photographs give us a window of opportunity where we’re suddenly awake and not numbed, and we want to do something. If there’s something we can do, like donate to the Red Cross, people will do it. But then if there’s nothing else they can do, then over time that gets turned off again.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

[individual] stories are important, and they can be very effective. But [only] if there’s an action that can be taken, then, while you’re engaged

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

feeling system doesn’t really add; it can’t multiply, it doesn’t handle numbers very well. It’s maximized at the number one: “Protect myself. Protect the person in front of me.” People who are like us, near us, near in time, things like that, we get a strong, emotional response when they’re in danger

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

found three psychological obstacles that inhibit response to major crises.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

first is the numbing response — the loss of sensitivity with the large numbers

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

second is a false sense of inefficacy. That’s [the feeling] what you’re doing just won’t matter. That is influenced by the fact that you’re only helping a portion of the problem. There are many people that you’re not helping, and that sends bad feelings. The warm glow you get from helping gets hijacked by the negative elements in the picture

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

experiment of helping a starving child. A certain percentage of people help [by donating money to the kid]. Then we have another condition with a different group, same child, same situation, except we put the numbers of the statistics of starvation next to her picture, and the donations dropped in half.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

third is a more analytic problem that we believe [affects] decision-making. We call it the “prominence effect.”

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

bias in decision-making toward the intrinsically more defensible. If you have to defend your choice, you can’t go wrong choosing a gift that has more cash. If you do it with the coupon, you say, “Well, are they really going to get the money’s worth?”

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

basically said, “We’re not going to let any refugees at all into Indiana unless we can be 100 percent sure that they are not going to cause us harm.” They can get away with it because everyone says, “Yeah, of course we don’t want to let terrorists into our communities.”

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

when it comes down to choice, the choice to protect the homeland is more defensible.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

For better or for worse, it’s an analytic system. We don’t leave it to people’s feelings of loyalty and obligation; we couldn’t. I think it’s the same thing with these moral crises — when you think carefully and you realize the scale, you have to create laws and institutions that are not sensitive to the feelings of the moment.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

interesting idea. If we can program some machine to be moral, it could be more moral than we are. Paul Slovic Yeah, because we’re not as moral as we’d like to be.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

people were less likely to do something that would save 4,500 lives in a refugee camp if that camp had 250,000 people than if it had 11,000 people. It didn’t feel as good to save those lives, 4,500 out of 250,000. That’s where you say, “Well, wait a minute. Even partial solutions save whole lives.”

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

We’re not reacting to [the threat of climate change]. And there’s so many different problems of large scale that we need to be working harder to combat. I think that is pessimistic.

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy

If I can’t solve it, I should try to get more people involved [in] trying to solve it

— https://www.vox.com/explainers/2017/7/19/15925506/psychic-numbing-paul-slovic-apathy