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

在许多情况下，当我们被要求援助生命受到威胁的人时，我们无法帮助每个人。然后我们该怎么办呢？研究表明，人们在帮助他们能帮助的人时往往感觉不太好，当他们的注意力被吸引到那些无法帮助的人时，他们的帮助就会减少。这些人表现出的丧失动力可能是一种非理性的伪无效性。我们不应该因为有些人是我们不能帮助的而不去帮助我们所能帮助的人。这项研究旨在更好地理解伪无效性的认知和情感基础，以及对抗它的测试策略。具体地说，研究小组在决定是否援助生命受到威胁的人的背景下检查了假无效性。实验室实验和在线调查阐明了人道主义需求的范围和框架、它所激发的思维类型以及与这种思维和虚假无效相关的不同情感反应之间的相互作用。这个项目的重要性来自于这样一个事实，即在国内和国际上，数百万人在贫困、疾病、食物不足、自然灾害和人类恶意的面前挣扎求生。那些有幸有能力和愿望帮助那些需要帮助的人和政府的人和政府收到了大量至关重要的援助请求。许多人确实做出了回应。个人、非政府组织和政府提供的人道主义援助虽然在某种意义上很大，但与所需和可以提供的援助相比，只是一小部分。对于那些有能力提供帮助的人来说，做出决定的强烈动机是感知到的有效性。无效，无论是真实的还是感知的，都会抑制反应，即使在那些有意愿和手段保护和改善生活的人中也是如此。事实上，当有效性得不到承认，本可以提供的重要援助由于无效的错觉而被扣留时，研究团队被贴上了“假无效”的标签，这确实是悲剧性的。本研究项目探索和记录了假性无效的根本心理原因，并开发了减轻其有害后果的方法。虽然拟议的研究是在人道主义援助的背景下进行的，但假性无效的问题是一系列重要的个人和社会决策的核心，这些决策的动机是感知到的效力，例如减轻气候变化或对人类健康和环境的其他威胁的行动。

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.