![]() Conversely, people who are in a positive mood may prefer to avoid hearing the story of a specific identified victim, fearing that this might ruin their positive mood as we further discuss. Specifically, building upon mood maintenance theory, and the Negative state relief model we hypothesized that people in a negative mood are more likely to sympathize with a specific identified victim, and may see the identifiable case as a tangible opportunity to help and improve their own mood. However, interest in, and openness to, the distress triggered by a single identified victim may be dependent on the prospective donor’s mood when encountering the donation request. Indeed, evidence from neural research suggests that emotions play a major role in decisions regarding donations to a single identified victim, while they have a smaller effect on donations to charitable organizations. Specifically, Kogut and Ritov have shown that when asked about their distress at learning of the plight of certain victim(s), participants who had been told about a single identified victim rated their distress higher than those who had been told about an unidentified victim or a group of victims (whether identified or not). This line of research suggests that feelings evoked by considering the victim’s plight play a major role in explaining this effect. Research on the identifiable victim effect demonstrates that people are more generous toward single, identifiable victims (about whom they have some information) than toward unidentifiable, abstract ones. How do you expect these happy people to react to a beggar who is standing by the roadside, begging for money? More generally, is this the right time for charity organizations to ask for donations? After a nerve-racking and exciting game, your country wins! People dance in the streets, and everyone is in a great mood. Imagine that your country’s national team is competing against another country’s national team in the World Cup finals. ![]() In addition, emotional reactions toward the victims replicate the donation pattern, suggesting emotions as a possible explanation for the observed donation pattern. In Study 2, individual differences in people’s moods interacted with the recipient’s identifiability in predicting donations, demonstrating that the identifiability effect is attenuated by a positive mood. In both studies, donations to identified victims exceeded donations to unidentified people-in the Negative Mood manipulations-while participants in the Positive Mood conditions showed no such preference. Study 1 (along with a pilot study) demonstrate causal relationships between mood and identifiability, while using different manipulations to induce moods. ![]() The findings of two studies consistently show that the identifiability effect is attenuated when the subject is in a positive mood. Previous research suggests that this effect stems from an intensive emotional reaction toward specific victims. People’s preference to help single victims about whom they have some information is known as the identifiable victim effect.
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