Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition

095 Identifiable Victim Effect

A single, identifiable victim elicits more helping behaviors than a group of anonymous victims.

The identifiable victim effect refers to the increased tendency to help a specific, identifiable victim versus a larger number of abstract or anonymous victims. For example, highlighting the plight of an individual using their name, photo, and story will generally elicit more helping behaviors than highlighting the same plight of a large group using statistics. The identifiable victim effect is sensitive to many factors and, therefore, can be tricky to reliably employ. Attempts to experimentally replicate the effect in laboratory contexts have yielded mixed results, from failing to show an effect altogether to showing ...