Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature

Butts, Marcus M.; Lunt, Devin; Freling, Traci H.; Gabriel, Allison S.

doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.12.006

Cited by 75 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 130 publications

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“…It is often argued that people are self-interested in most contexts, including altruistic donation (e.g., Batson 1994Batson , 2011. According to the included reviews, donors appear to pursue a number of different rewards by donating, including reputational benefits (Bolkan and Rains 2017), tax deductions (Peloza and Steel 2005), and positive psychological rewards (Butts et al 2019). In many cases the 'reward' resources sought are mediated by whether the potential donors give or not, rather than how much they give.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is also known as the identifiable victim effect, where an individual victim receives a higher donation than a group (Jenni and Loewenstein 1997). In mediation analyses, the authors found that this effect was driven by perceived impact and anticipated positive affect (Butts et al 2019). That is, donating to a larger group of recipients makes the donor assess that they are having less of an impact compared with an individual recipient.…”

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…One review of 41 studies and 13,259 participants investigated "compassion fade", a hypothesis that compassion-and therefore donation-decreases as the type of recipient moves from a single, identifiable person to a large, anonymous group (Butts et al 2019). Butts and colleagues (2019) found support for compassion fade: donors gave less money in situations with more recipients (rhelping behavior = -0.11, 95%CI [-0.17, -0.08]).…”

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mediation analyses showed these two factors played a bigger role than empathy: while people showed slightly less empathy for a larger group of people, this lower empathy had only a small effect on donation. Butts et al (2019) also conducted a meta-regression to investigate moderators of the compassion fade effect. Their meta-regression demonstrated that compassion fade is less prevalent when problems are certain to severely affect a large number of people (e.g., famine)…”

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis

Noetel¹,

Slattery²,

Saeri³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Purpose. How can charities best increase the donations to their causes? This study aims to answer this question by synthesizing review-level evidence for increasing charitable giving.Methodology. This paper is an umbrella review of systematic reviews on interventions that influence financial donations to non-profits.Findings. We found 14 meta-analyses (combined N = 1,510,966) covering nine factors influencing charitable giving. Three factors increased donations: tax deductibility, encouraging women to make intuitive judgements, and legitimizing paltry contributions. Two factors reduced donations: compassion fade and larger starting amounts of money. Four factors did not influence donations: ‘door-in-the-face’, prosocial media, government crowding out/in, and artificial surveillance cues. Most reviews focused on contrived experiments measuring one-off donations, such as dictator games. None met all best-practice guidelines for systematic reviews.Practical implications. To increase donations, charities could promote the tax deductibility of the donation, the effects of even small contributions, and highlight the impact of the donation. Systematic reviews allow for more robust conclusions, but many recent reviews of philanthropy marketing neglect best-practice and focus on topics of limited applied utility.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Compassion Fade Reduces Donations To Many Causesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis

Noetel¹,

Slattery²,

Saeri³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There is considerable evidence that encounters with multiple victims or persons in need, compared to single individuals, changes valuation processes during decision making (Fetherstonhaugh, Slovic, Johnson & Friedrich, 1997;Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997;Kogut & Ritov, 2005;Markowitz, Slovic, Västfjäll & Hodges, 2013;Västfjäll, Slovic, Mayorga & Peters, 2014;Slovic, Västfjäll, Erlandsson, & Gregory, 2017; for recent review see Butts, Lunt, Freling & Gabriel, 2019) and that prolonged exposure to persons in need can lead to permanent deficits in empathic capacities (Butts et al, 2019;Cocker & Joss, 2016;Figley, 1995;Mathieu, 2007;Sabo, 2006). The latter effect is known as compassion fatigue and the former as compassion fade.…”

Section: Inconsistencies In Repeated Refugee Status Decisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inconsistencies in repeated refugee status decisions

Pärnamets¹,

Tagesson²,

Wallin³

2019

Preprint

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Consistency in civil servant decisions is paramount to upholding judicial equality for citizens and individuals seeking safety through governmental intervention. We investigated refugee status decisions made by a sample of civil servants at the Swedish Migration Agency. We hypothesized, based on the emotional demands such decisions bring with them, that participants would exhibit a compassion fade effect such that refugee status was less likely to be granted over time. To test this, we administered a questionnaire containing brief presentations of asylum seekers and asked participants to judge how likely they would be to give refugee status to the person. Crucially the first, middle and final case presented were matched on decision relevant characteristics. Consistent with our hypothesis we saw a significant decline in ratings. These effects were accentuated by the amount of time a participant had worked at the agency, consistent with depletion of affective resources, and attenuated in workers with greater responsibility and additional training. We conclude that active regulation of empathic and affective responses to asylum seekers may play a role in determining the outcome in refugee status decisions.

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Inconsistencies in repeated refugee status decisions

Pärnamets

Tagesson

Wallin

2020

Behavioral Decision Making

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Consistency in civil servant decisions is paramount to upholding judicial equality for citizens and individuals seeking safety through governmental intervention. We investigated refugee status decisions made by a sample of civil servants at the Swedish Migration Agency. We hypothesized, based on the emotional demands such decisions bring with them, that participants would exhibit a compassion fade effect such that refugee status was less likely to be granted over time. To test this, we administered a questionnaire containing brief presentations of asylum seekers and asked participants to judge how likely they would be to give refugee status to the person. Crucially the first, middle, and final case presented were matched on decision relevant characteristics. Consistent with our hypothesis, we saw a significant decline in ratings. These effects were accentuated by the amount of time a participant had worked at the agency, consistent with depletion of affective resources, and attenuated in workers with greater responsibility and additional training. We conclude that active regulation of empathic and affective responses to asylum seekers may play a role in determining the outcome in refugee status decisions.

show abstract

Helping one or helping many? A theoretical integration and meta-analytic review of the compassion fade literature

Cited by 75 publications

References 130 publications

What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis

What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis

Inconsistencies in repeated refugee status decisions

Inconsistencies in repeated refugee status decisions

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