You might have charities that are close to your heart, but according to a new study published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, people are more likely to support charities that elicit immediate responses in them.
Leaf Van Boven, author of the study and professor of psychology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, believes that individuals respond most to causes that have recently been brought to their attention. To test this theory, Van Boven and his peers recruited volunteers to watch four nonfiction films that dealt with issues such as malnutrition and diseases outside the US. Afterward, when asked to distribute $100 among the charities each of the film stood for, the participants ended up giving a disproportionate amount to the last film they had seen.
While it’s possible that they were simply more swayed by the last film, another experiment proved otherwise. When the participants were asked to allocate the same amount of money between the four films right after each screening, they ended up giving more money to the earlier films.
"Before donating to a cause, no matter how worthy it may seem, people might take a moment to think about whether the cause that is immediately upsetting them is really the cause that is most deserving of charitable donations," explained Van Boven. "Sometimes human suffering that captures immediate attention displaces attention and concern to suffering that, for whatever reason, does not trigger immediate emotions."
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