social psychology on how to save the world

From... http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200912/nicholas-kristof-philanthropy-advice-1.html

Lessons from social psychology suggest that:

"If one lesson is the need to emphasize hopefulness, the second is that storytelling needs to focus on an individual, not a group."

"One experiment found that people are quite willing to pay for a water-treatment facility to save 4,500 lives in a refugee camp with 11,000 people in it, but they are much less willing to pay for the same facility to save 4,500 lives when the refugee camp is said to have 250,000 inhabitants. In effect, what matters is saving a high proportion of people, not just a large number of lives."

"In each case, research subjects were quite willing to help and donated generously either to Rokia or to Moussa (for argument's sake, two hungry children). But when people were asked to donate to Rokia and Moussa together, with their photographs side by side, donations decreased. Slovic found that our empathy begins to fade when the number of victims reaches just two. As he puts it: "The more who die, the less we care."

what FASCINATING stuff! if ever there was a reason not be sad about the state of the world, this would be it! and in reality, a little bit would really go a long, long way - the challenge of providing basic needs for all is far from insurmountable

let's shed those heavy boots forever :)