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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compassion fade | 1/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fade | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T13:44:00.490623+00:00 | kb-cron |
Compassion fade is the tendency to experience a decrease in empathy as the number of people in need of aid increase. As a type of cognitive bias, it has a significant effect on the prosocial behaviour from which helping behaviour generates. The term was developed by psychologist and researcher Paul Slovic. This phenomenon can especially be observed through individuals' reluctance to help when faced with mass crises. Accordingly, directly linked to the idea of compassion fade is what Slovic, along with Deborah Small, refer to as the collapse of compassion (or compassion collapse), a psychological theory denoting the human tendency to turn away from mass suffering. Slovic also introduced the concept of psychophysical numbing—the diminished sensitivity to the value of life and an inability to appreciate loss—by taking a collectivist interpretation of the phenomenon of psychic numbing to discuss how people respond to mass atrocities. The most common explanation for compassion fade is the use of a mental shortcut or heuristic called the 'affect heuristic', which causes people to make decisions based on emotional attachments to a stimulus. Other explanations for compassion fade include affective bias (empathy is greatest when one is able to visualise a victim) and motivated emotion regulation (when people suppress feelings to avoid being emotionally overwhelmed). Other cognitive biases that contribute to compassion fade include the identifiable victim effect (IVE), pseudo-inefficacy, and the prominence effect. Compassion fade has also been used in reference to "the arithmetic of compassion."
== Overview == According to Paul Slovic,
A single child fallen down a well or dying of starvation stirs our hearts and moves our hands (and wallets) to action. Yet as soon as the number of victims increases to two, compassion—both affective and behavioral—begins to wane. Such compassion fade (i.e., decreases in helping behavior or support for it) has been widely documented in the humanitarian domain and is troubling for at least three reasons. First, it defies our normative beliefs about how we should value the lives of those in need. Second, it contradicts our intuitions about how we ourselves would react when asked to aid others. Third, it suggests that confronting large-scale humanitarian and (perhaps) environmental crises—from mass starvation to climate change—may not only involve overcoming political and economic hurdles but also insidious psychological ones as well.
=== Definition === Compassion fade, coined by psychologist Paul Slovic, is the tendency of people to experience a decrease in empathy as the number of people in need of aid increase. It is a type of cognitive bias that explains the tendency to ignore unwanted information when making a decision, so it is easier to justify. The term compassion in this case refers to compassionate behaviour—that is, the intention to help or the act of helping. In this way, compassion fade can be explained by the cognitive processes that lead to helping behaviour. First is the individual's response to victim group, followed by motivation to help, which therefore generates the intention or act of helping. A conceptual model of helping highlights the self-concern and concern for others as mediators of motivation. Within the compassion fade theory, people tend to be influenced by:
the anticipated positive effect (self-concern) concern for others (empathic concern) the perceived impact (hybrid of both interests)
=== Context === The concept of compassion fade was introduced in 1947 through a statement commonly attributed to Joseph Stalin (but originally coined by Kurt Tucholsky in 1925 ) "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." Traditional economic and psychological theory of choice is based on the assumption that preferences are determined by the objective valuation of an item. Research in the 1960s and 1970s by psychologists Paul Slovic and Sarah Litchfield first looked at the emotional mechanisms in risk-assessment and developed the theory of preference construction, people tend to unequally weigh possible alternatives when making a decision. The term psychic numbing was coined in 1997 to describe the non-linear relationship between provision of aid and the number of lives at risk. It explains how valuation of lives are cognitively perceived: each life decreases in marginal value as the number of victims increase. In the early 2000s, research by behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman found that people have different emotional and cognitive reactions to numerical information. Similar research by Slovic in 2007 demonstrated people's emotional responses decreased as the number of lives increase which led to the development of Compassion fade.
=== Compassion fade and mass crises === Compassion fade may especially be observed through individuals' reluctance to help when faced with mass crises, as a response to the number of victims involved in an event is determined by the balancing of self-interest and the concern for others. According to the concept of confirmation bias, people tend to consider self-interest alongside concern for others. An apathetic response following a large number of victims is considered to be normal because people have a limited capacity to feel sympathy; hence, conversely, an emotional response results in the individual's willingness and ability to help. Accordingly, directly linked to the idea of compassion fade is what Slovic, along with Deborah Small, refer to as the collapse of compassion (or compassion collapse), a psychological theory denoting the human tendency to turn away from mass suffering.