The Arithmetic of Compassion: Confronting the Challenge of Pseudoinefficacy in Charitable Giving

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In a great many situations where we are asked to aid persons whose lives are endangered, we are not able to help everyone. What do we then do? Research has shown that people often feel less good about helping those they can help and they help less when their attention is drawn to those who cannot be helped. The demotivation exhibited by these people may be a form of pseudoinefficacy that is nonrational. We should not be deterred from helping whomever we can because there are others we are not able to help. This research aims to provide a better understanding of the cognitive and emotional underpinnings of pseudoinefficacy and test strategies to combat it. Specifically, the research team examines pseudoinefficacy in the context of decisions about whether to aid people whose lives are endangered. Laboratory experiments and online surveys illuminate the interplay between the scope and framing of the humanitarian need, the type of thinking it stimulates, and the distinct emotional responses associated with such thinking and with pseudoinefficacy.The importance of this project comes from the fact that, domestically and internationally, millions of people struggle to survive in the face of poverty, disease, food insufficiency, natural disasters, and human malevolence. Those individuals and governments fortunate to have the ability and desire to help those in need are inundated with requests for vital aid. Many do respond. Humanitarian aid provided by individuals, NGOs, and governments, though large in some sense, is but a fraction of what is needed and what could be provided. For those in a position to help, decisions are strongly motivated by perceived efficacy. Inefficacy, real or perceived, shrivels response, even among those who have the desire and the means to protect and improve lives. It is tragic, indeed, when efficacy goes unrecognized and vital aid that could be provided is withheld due to the illusion of ineffectiveness that the research teams has labelled "pseudoinefficacy." This research projecct explores and documents the root psychological causes of pseudoinefficacy and develops ways to mitigate its harmful consequences. Although the proposed studies are set in the context of humanitarian aid, the problem of pseudoinefficacy is central to a wide range of important personal and societal decisions motivated by perceived efficacy, such as actions to mitigate climate change or other threats to human health and the environment.