Large-Scale Tragedies Fail to Connect With People 'Emotionally'

Large-scale tragedies, a recent study has revealed, affect people emotionally differently than smaller tragedies.

The new study conducted by Loran Nordgren of the Kellogg School of Management and Mary-Hunter Morris of Harvard Law School found that a "scope-severity paradox" exists in which judgment of harm tends to be based on emotional reactions. Thus, people have a stronger emotional response to singular identifiable victims rather than to an entire crowd of sufferers.

Religion 'Has A Negative Influence On The World' Say 59 Percent Of Brit Teens
Nearly two thirds of Brit teenagers say they don't believe in the existence of God, according to a new survey.

"We see this time and again on the news, where a missing person is featured as a leading story for months because there is emotional interest wrapped up in that single individual," said Nordgren.

"But, if you think of current stories such as the Chilean miners or the people affected by the BP oil spill, we find that it’s harder to relate to those victims unless you get to know their personal stories. The bottom line is that it’s difficult for people to connect when there are many faceless victims, he said.

To test their theory, the researchers conducted a series of three experiments.

Give a 'Human Response' to Ongoing Tragedy, Says Vietnam Agent Orange Victim
The Agent Orange tragedy has devastated young lives in Vietnam.

In the first study, Nordgren and Morris asked participants to read a story about a financial advisor who defrauded his clients.fter reading the story, participants were asked to evaluate the severity of the crime and to recommend a punishment for the perpetrator, as well as to describe one of the participants in the case.

As predicted, participants in the small-scope condition judged the fraud case more harshly and recommended a longer jail sentence for the perpetrator.

Chemical Tragedy Leaves Legacy of 'Bhopal Brides'
The Bhopal gas disaster killed thousands 25 years ago this week and left many more ill from exposure one being Jyoti whose hopes of a glittering wedding were shattered.

The second experiment tested whether the researchers could correct this bias by manipulating the identifiability of the victims.

The participants read a story about a food processing company that sold tainted food that made people sick.

Relatives Re-trace Fateful Journey of Titanic to Remember the Tragedy That Struck 100 Years Back
Relatives of those who were on The Titanic will embark on a memorial cruise by re-tracing the ocean liner's fateful journey across the Atlantic to mark 100 years since it went down in 1912.

One group was given a basic description of the victims whereas a second group received a photo of one of the victims along with her name and occupation. As in the first experiment, stronger identifiability with the victim led participants to perceive the crime more severely and to recommend greater punishment for the company.

Finally, a third experiment examined the scope-severity paradox in real jury verdicts. The researchers looked at the outcomes of 133 U.S. court cases between 2000 and 2009 in which someone had been negligently exposed to either asbestos, lead paint or toxic mold.

They found that total damages decreased as the number of people affected increased.

"In all three studies, we found that increasing the number of people victimized by a crime actually decreases the perceived severity of that crime and leads people to recommend less punishment for crimes that victimize more people," said Nordgren.

According to Nordgren, the paradox is problematic especially in situations involving mass crimes like genocide in which harm is extreme and widely dispersed among a large population of people.

The study entitled "The Scope-Severity Paradox: Why doing more harm is judged to be less harmful," was published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Source-ANI