711ADVERTISING STRATEGIES FOR CHARITIES
victims than statistical ones. Researchers term this phenomenon the identifiable victim effect (Small & Loewestein 2003; Ein-Gar & Levontin 2013) and have attempted to reveal its causes. The proportion of the reference group effect is one of the factors that explains why consumers are more generous to identifiable victims consumers are more sensitive to proportions than to absolute numbers when they evaluate life and objects with nontransparent values (Baron 1997; Small
et al. 2007) because proportions are easier to interpret (Slovic
et al. 2002). Therefore, consumers believe that ten deaths occurring in a group of 100 people is more serious than ten deaths occurring in a group of 1,000 people. In the
case of identifiable victims, the reference group (or the denominator) comprises the victims themselves (1 out of 1; 100%), whereas the statistical victims reference group is a large population, indicating that the proportion is lower than 100%. Therefore, consumers are more concerned about identifiable victims than statistical ones (Small
et al. The present study argues that different types of victim attract different types of donation resources. Identifiable victims
attract more time donations, and statistical victims attract more money donations because these different victims are qualitatively distinct and generate different thought process modes. According to Small
et al. (2007), vivid, personal and specific objects generate emotional
or affective thought processes, whereas abstract and impersonal objects generate cognitive or deliberate processing modes. Thus, an identifiable victim who is more vivid, personal and specific will
produce an affective process, and a statistical victim who is more abstract and impersonal will generate cognitive processes. As Liu and Aaker (2008) have mentioned, time is closely related to the
affective mindset therefore, consumers engaging in affective processing modes will have a stronger intention to donate time. In contrast, consumers who go through a calculative process will be more willing to donate money because spending money is closely related to economic utility (Liu & Aaker 2008) and a value-maximising goal (Vohs
et al. 2006), which means that the resource is calculative by nature.
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