NUMB?

A recent study reported in Psychology Today provided some surprising findings.

In 2004 researchers at Carnegie Mellon University tested the effects of two letters asking for a donation (no more than $5) to Save the Children. The first letter contained statistics about the suffering of children in Africa: food shortages in Malawi affecting more than 3 million children; 11 million in Ethiopia needing food assistance; etc. The second letter had information about one specific young girl.

“Any money that you donate will go to Rokia, a 7-year-old girl in Mali. She is desperately poor and in near starvation. With your help, Save the Children will work with Rokia’s family to help feed and educate her, and provide her with necessary medical care.”

There were three groups in the study: Group 1 got the statistical letter; Group 2 got Rokia’s sad story; Group 3 got both.

Here are the results:

Group 1 (statistical letter) gave, on average, $1.15

Group 2 (Rokia’s story) gave, on average, $2.40, over twice what those who read the numbers gave.

The smaller donations for the statistical letter is what is called the “drop in the bucket effect.” Overwhelmed by the scale of the problem—the starvation of millions—donors feel their small amounts are meaningless.

But here’s the strange finding.

Group 3 (statistical letter and Rokia’s story) gave, on average, $1.40, almost a dollar less than what those who got just the story gave.

For some strange reason, the statistics actually made donors less willing to give, less likely to be turned on emotionally—the “statistical numbing effect.”

While it seems heartless to care only for one and not for many, it actually makes perfect sense. “You are a person, not a number. You don't see digits in the mirror, you see a face. And you don't see a crowd. You see an individual. So you and I relate more powerfully to the reality of a single person than to the numbing faceless nameless lifeless abstraction of numbers.” As one psychologist put it, “Statistics are human beings with the tears dried off.”

Mother Teresa was right: “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”

Perhaps it is because we tend to identify with a concrete face, a specific name, a particular suffering, than with the pathos of a faceless and nameless crowd.

All this to say, it is very easy to become numb. How quickly we lose compassion. Hearts tend to harden almost by default.

“I feel compassion for the people

because they have remained with Me

now three days and have nothing to eat.

If I send them away hungry to their homes,

they will faint on the way.”

Mark 8:2–3

And Jesus proceeded to feed 4,000! A large crowd, but they were not faceless or nameless to him. Compassionate, not numb.

So must we be.

He who oppresses the poor

taunts his Maker,

But he who is gracious to the needy

honors Him.

Proverbs 14:31

One who is gracious to a poor man

lends to the LORD,

And He will repay him

for his good deed.

Proverbs 19:17

He who shuts his ear

to the cry of the poor

Will also cry himself

and not be answered.

Proverbs 21:13

He who is generous

will be blessed,

For he gives some of his food

to the poor.

Proverbs 22:9

He who gives to the poor

will never want,

But he who shuts his eyes

will have many curses.

Proverbs 28:27

May we never be numb to the plight of others. Compassionate, not numb!