PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Disaster relief donations track number of people killed, not number of survivors

2013-09-23
(Press-News.org) People pay more attention to the number of people killed in a natural disaster than to the number of survivors when deciding how much money to donate to disaster relief efforts, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The donation bias can be reversed, however, with a simple change in terminology.

"While fatalities have a severe impact on the afflicted community or country, disaster aid should be allocated to people affected by the disaster – those who are injured, homeless, or hungry," says lead researcher Ioannis Evangelidis of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) in the Netherlands. "Our research shows that donors tend not to consider who really receives the aid."

This discrepancy leads to a "humanitarian disaster," say Evangelidis and colleague Bram Van den Bergh, where money is given disproportionately toward the natural disasters with the most deaths, instead of the ones with the most people in desperate need of help.

The researchers began by examining humanitarian relief data for natural disasters occurring between 2000 and 2010. As they expected, they found that the number of fatalities predicted the probability of donation, as well as the amount donated, by private donors in various disasters. Their model estimated that about $9,300 was donated per person killed in a given disaster. The number of people affected in the disasters, on the other hand, appeared to have no influence on the amount donated to relief efforts.

Evangelidis and Van den Bergh believe that donors are more likely to pay attention to a death toll when deciding how much to give because the term "affected" is ambiguous. In many cases, though, fatalities don't correlate with the number of actual people in need.

To find a way to combat this donation bias, the researchers brought participants into the laboratory and presented them with several scenarios, involving various types of disasters and different numbers of people killed and affected.

Overall, participants allocated more money when a disaster resulted in a high death toll – even when the number of people affected was low – mirroring the data from the real natural disasters.

The bias was reversed, however, when participants had to compare two earthquakes – one that killed 4,500 and affected 7,500 versus one that claimed 7,500 and affected 4,500 – before allocating funds.

The act of comparing the two disasters seems to have forced the participants to think critically about which group actually needed the aid more. Notably, the effect carried over when the participants were asked to allocate funds for a third disaster

But the easiest, and most realistic, way to reduce the donation bias may involve a simple change in terminology. When the researchers swapped the term "affected" with the much less ambiguous term "homeless," participants believed that money should be allocated according to the number of homeless people following a disaster.

"Above all, attention should be diverted from the number of fatalities to the number of survivors in need," Evangelidis and Van den Bergh conclude. "We are optimistic that these insights will enhance aid to victims of future disasters."

###

For more information about this study, please contact: Ioannis Evangelidis at ievangelidis@rsm.nl.

The article abstract is available online: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/19/0956797613490748.abstract

This work was supported by the Department of Marketing Management at Rotterdam School of Management and by the Erasmus Research Institute of Management.

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Number of Fatalities Drives Disaster Aid: Increasing Sensitivity to People in Need" and access to other Psychological Scienceresearch findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Research minimizes effects of federal produce standards on mushroom industry

2013-09-21
Strict requirements on the use of animal manures in fresh produce production imposed by the new federal food-safety law threatened to adversely impact the mushroom industry, which relies on horse and poultry manure for a specialized growth substrate. But a new study shows that heat generated during the traditional composting process -- originally developed to kill insect and fungal pests of mushrooms -- is adequate for eliminating human pathogens that might be present, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. As a result of those findings, ...

NASA HS3 mission reveals Tropical Storm Humberto's hybrid core

2013-09-21
NASA's Global Hawk 872 flew over Tropical Storm Humberto on Sept. 16 and 17 after it was reborn from remnants of its earlier life cycle. Data from NASA 872 showed that the core had a hybrid structure. NASA's Global Hawk 872 unmanned aircraft took off at 10:42 a.m. EDT from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., Sept. 16 to investigate newly reformed Tropical Storm Humberto. NASA 872 dispersed dropsondes throughout Humberto and gathered data on the environment of the storm. A sonde is a device that measures winds, temperature, and humidity. The instrument ...

UC Davis researchers find Neandertals, not modern humans, made first bone tools

2013-09-21
One day in 2011, undergraduate student Naomi Martisius was sorting through tiny bone remnants in the University of California, Davis, paleoanthropology lab when she stumbled across a peculiar piece. The bone fragment, from a French archaeological site, turned out to be a part of an early specialized bone tool used by a Neandertal before the first modern humans appeared in Europe. "At the time, I had no idea about the impact of my discovery," said Martisius, who is now pursuing her doctoral degree in anthropology at UC Davis. Martisius' opportunity was the result of ...

NASA sees remnants of Hurricane Manuel soaking northern Mexico, Texas

2013-09-21
Two NASA satellites observed Hurricane Manuel as it made landfall in northwestern Mexico and brought rainfall into southwestern Texas. NASA's TRMM Satellite measured Hurricane Manuel's rainfall from space and found areas where it was falling as fast as 2 inches per hour. NASA's Aqua satellite captured both visible and infrared images that revealed strong thunderstorms associated with Manuel's remnants were streaming northeast into Texas. Those rains are expected to continue to soaking central Texas through Sept. 21. As predicted by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), ...

NASA sees super typhoon affecting Philippines and Taiwan, headed to China

2013-09-21
VIDEO: In this TRMM satellite flyover animation from Sept. 19 rain was falling at a rate of over 140mm/~5.5 inches (red) per hour in the powerful storms within Super Typhoon Usagi's... Click here for more information. The most powerful typhoon of 2013 was passing between northern Philippines and southern Taiwan on Sept. 19. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Usagi, infrared data showed a large area of powerful thunderstorms and heavy rain surrounding the center while ...

Prostacyclin analogs and PDE 5 inhibitors synergistically stimulate ATP release from human RBCs

2013-09-21
Researchers at Saint Louis University School of Medicine have discovered a novel interaction between prostacyclin (PGI2) analogs and phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, two groups of drugs used in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). They found that, in combination, these drugs stimulate enhanced release of a potent vasodilator adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from human red blood cells (RBCs). Their study appears in the September 2013 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. PAH is a chronic disorder characterized by sustained increases in pulmonary ...

Followers' actions affect organization's leadership capacity Wayne State researcher finds

2013-09-21
DETROIT — Members of an educational organization contribute to its leadership and can blend personal and social needs to help leaders encourage cooperation, a Wayne State University researcher has found. Administrators of college preparatory programs — which are aimed at high school students but housed in colleges or universities — typically have been viewed as leaders, with students seen as followers. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to focus on the impact of followers on educational organizations' leadership and leadership practices. Michael Owens, Ph.D., assistant ...

TRMM satellite sees system 98W organizing near Guam, Marianas

2013-09-21
NASA's TRMM satellite data revealed heavy rainfall and banding of thunderstorms around the southern quadrant of System 98W in the northwestern Pacific near Guam and the Marianas Islands. Those are two signs that the low pressure area may be consolidating into a tropical depression. At 1700 UTC/1 p.m. EDT on Sept. 20, System 98W was centered about 16.2 north and 146.7 east, about 195 nautical miles north-northeast of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. System 98W had maximum sustained winds near 25 knots/28.7 mph/46.3 kph. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite ...

Covert operations: Your brain digitally remastered for clarity of thought

2013-09-21
The sweep of a needle across the grooves of a worn vinyl record carries distinct sounds: hisses, scratches, even the echo of skips. For many years, though, those yearning to hear Frank Sinatra sing "Fly Me to the Moon" have been able to listen to his light baritone with technical clarity, courtesy of the increased signal-to-noise ratio of digital remasterings. Now, with advances in neurofeedback techniques, the signal-to-noise ratio of the brain activity underlying our thoughts can be remastered as well, according to a recent discovery in the Proceedings of the National ...

Stronger sexual impulses may explain why men cheat more than women, study reveals

2013-09-21
AUSTIN, Texas — A recently published study strongly suggests men succumb to sexual temptations more than women — for example, cheating on a partner — because they experience strong sexual impulses, not because they have weak self-control. Previous research has shown that men are more likely than women to pursue romantic partners that are "off limits." However, until now, the explanation for this sex difference was largely unexplored. One possible explanation for this effect is that men experience stronger sexual impulses than women do. A second possibility is that ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Exercise as an anti-ageing intervention to avoid detrimental impact of mental fatigue

UMass Amherst Nursing Professor Emerita honored as ‘Living Legend’

New guidelines aim to improve cystic fibrosis screening

Picky eaters by day, buffet by night: Butterfly, moth diets sync to plant aromas

Pennington Biomedical’s Dr. Leanne Redman honored with the E. V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition

CCNY physicists uncover electronic interactions mediated via spin waves

Researchers’ 3D-printing formula may transform future of foam

Nurture more important than nature for robotic hand

Drug-delivering aptamers target leukemia stem cells for one-two knockout punch

New study finds that over 95% of sponsored influencer posts on Twitter were not disclosed

New sea grant report helps great lakes fish farmers navigate aquaculture regulations

Strain “trick” improves perovskite solar cells’ efficiency

How GPS helps older drivers stay on the roads

Estrogen and progesterone stimulate the body to make opioids

Dancing with the cells – how acoustically levitating a diamond led to a breakthrough in biotech automation

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria

Cellular regulator of mRNA vaccine revealed... offering new therapeutic options

Animal behavioral diversity at risk in the face of declining biodiversity

Finding their way: GPS ignites independence in older adult drivers

Antibiotic resistance among key bacterial species plateaus over time

‘Some insects are declining but what’s happening to the other 99%?’

Powerful new software platform could reshape biomedical research by making data analysis more accessible

Revealing capillaries and cells in living organs with ultrasound

American College of Physicians awards $260,000 in grants to address equity challenges in obesity care

Researchers from MARE ULisboa discover that the European catfish, an invasive species in Portugal, has a prolonged breeding season, enhancing its invasive potential

Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, FAACR, honored with the 2025 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research

Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

Deporting immigrants may further shrink the health care workforce

Border region emergency medical services in migrant emergency care

Resident physician intentions regarding unionization

[Press-News.org] Disaster relief donations track number of people killed, not number of survivors