title: Iconic photographs and the ebb and flow of empathic response to humanitarian disasters.
abstract: The power of visual imagery is well known, enshrined in such familiar sayings as "seeing is believing" and "a picture is worth a thousand words." Iconic photos stir our emotions and transform our perspectives about life and the world in which we live. On September 2, 2015, photographs of a young Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying face-down on a Turkish beach, filled the front pages of newspapers worldwide. These images brought much-needed attention to the Syrian war that had resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and created millions of refugees. Here we present behavioral data demonstrating that, in this case, an iconic photo of a single child had more impact than statistical reports of hundreds of thousands of deaths. People who had been unmoved by the relentlessly rising death toll in Syria suddenly appeared to care much more after having seen Aylan's photograph; however, this newly created empathy waned rather quickly. We briefly examine the psychological processes underlying these findings, discuss some of their policy implications, and reflect on the lessons they provide about the challenges to effective intervention in the face of mass threats to human well-being.
authors.affiliation: Decision Research, Eugene, OR 97401; pslovic@uoregon.edu.|Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Slovic
authors.affiliation: Decision Research, Eugene, OR 97401.|Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Västfjäll
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.|Department of Psychology, Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden.
authors.forename: Arvid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Erlandsson
authors.affiliation: Decision Research, Eugene, OR 97401.|ChoiceWorks Ltd., Halfmoon Bay, BC, Canada V0N1Y2.
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gregory
mesh_terms: D000533:Altruism; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D008399:Mass Behavior; D010781:Photography; D012036:Refugees / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012066:Relief Work / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013593:Syria
keywords: Syrian refugees; empathy; humanitarian disasters; iconic photographs; psychic numbing