by Sara Goudarzi, for LiveScience Journal
SAN FRANCISCO—While a person's accidental death reported on the evening news can bring viewers to tears, mass killings reported as statistics fail to tickle human emotions, a new study finds.
The Internet and other modern communications bring atrocities such as killings in Darfur, Sudan* into homes and office cubicles. But knowledge of these events fails to motivate most to take action, said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon researcher.
People typically react very strongly to one death but their emotions fade as the number of victims increase, Slovic reported here yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"We go all out to save a single identified victim, be it a person or an animal, but as the numbers increase, we level off," Slovic said. "We don't feel any different to say 88 people dying than we do to 87. This is a disturbing model, because it means that lives are not equal, and that as problems become bigger we become insensitive to the prospect of additional deaths."
Human insensitivity to large-scale human suffering has been observed in the past century with genocides in Armenia, the Ukraine, Nazi Germany and Rwanda, among others.
"We have to understand what it is in our makeup—psychologically, socially, politically and institutionally—that has allowed genocide to go unabated for a century," Slovic said. "If we don't answer that question and use the answer to change things, we will see another century of horrible atrocities around the world."
Slovic previously studied this phenomenon by presenting photographs to a group of subjects. In the first photograph eight children needed $300,000 to receive medical attention in order to save their lives. In the next photograph, one child needed $300,000 for medical bills.
Most subjects were willing to donate to the one and not the group of children.
In his latest research, Slovic and colleagues showed three photos to participants: a starving African girl, a starving African boy and a photo of both of them together.
Participants felt equivalent amounts of sympathy for each child when viewed separately, but compassion levels declined when the children were viewed together.
"The studies ... suggest a disturbing psychological tendency," Slovic said. "Our capacity to feel is limited. Even at two, people start to lose it.”
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On the issue of genocide, I am a bit disturb by the fact that Shabra Shatila genocide was not even mentioned by the writer. Sure, the 'official' death toll (3500) is probably not as much as the Auschwitz's 'death toll'; and the researcher's background (i.e. non-muslim*) might account for her to be innocently unaware of the significance of the tragedy; but I am still quite adamant that the tragedy is somewhat worth mentioning in such credible journal. This is especially true considering the backlash involved around the world condemning and boycotting Israel and 'her' goods. Nonetheless in the current political viewing of the tragedy (i.e. after the Belgian court proceedings**), who can blame him.
________________* I have my doubts about the situation in Sudan, as noted in a previous post* Be aware that I am saying this without prejudice whatsoever. Just that the genocide is understandably more emotionally significant and takes more political influence among muslims.** Belgian Court Proceeding - After the victims of the Rwandan Genocide won a legal case using a 1993 law, the victims of Shabra Shatila Massacre filed a lawsuit in Belgium against Ariel Sharon (then Israeli Prime Minister but was the Minister of Defence at the time of massacre). The Belgium Supreme Court in February 2003 ruled that there were vindication to bring Sharon and his 'comrades' to face the charges.Unfortunately at the time, another case was brought forward against the former US President George Bush and Secretary of State (if I'm not mistaken) Colin Powell for war crimes during the first Gulf War. US argued against the validity of having proceedings of war crime committed elsewhere taking place in Belgian Supreme Court. The US pressured the Belgian government to revoke the jurisdiction and even pressured its European Allies to move NATO HQ away from Brussels.As a result, the Belgian Parliment were forced to amend its law to require human rights complaints to only take place in Belgium given that a Belgian is involved. They also guaranteed diplomatic immunity for world leaders visiting the country.
Rally by Italians to commemorate the Shabra & Shatila Massacre in 2003. Why the heck didn't we have one in Malaysia? (Answer: cause people in general don't care, why? cause people don't know, why? up to yourselves to answer)
Israel said it was an act of self-defense, a response to escalating number of rocket attacks from Gaza. Hmm..
