关键词: 共情, 可识别受害者效应, 资源分配, 公平, 社会距离

Abstract: "Identifiable Victim effect" refers to individuals’ tendency to offer greater aid to specific, identifiable victims than to anonymous, statistical victims, which is suggested to be one of the major factors inducing unfairness in resource allocations. The present study examined how the "identifiable victim effect" modulates resource allocation through two experiments. Experiment 1 focused on the priority while experiment 2 focused on the quantity in allocation. Participants played as "resource allocators" and they were instructed to distribute resources to two recipients (one recipient was the identifiable one whose name and image have been shown to the participant while the other one was the unidentifiable one whose information has not been shown). Here the “resource” was not money but "relieving resources" that can eliminate physiological threats the recipients were facing (painful electrical shocks in Experiment 1 and unpleasant noise in Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, two recipients would receive the same number of painful electrical shocks. The participants were endowed with the “relieving resource” that can eliminate one or two electric shocks for one recipient. They were not aware of whether they can eliminate 1 or 2 shocks before they made their first decision. We would mainly focus on how they weighted the priority of allocation by examining which recipient would receive their first aid (i.e. they would eliminate the first electric shock for which recipient). In Experiment 2, two recipients were facing the threat of unpleasant noise while the "relieving resources" were only enough for eliminating all of the noise for one recipient. We would mainly focus on how the participants would distribute the limited relieving resource between the identifiable and unidentifiable recipients. Results of Experiments 1 & 2 revealed that the "identifiable victim effect" does lead to unfairness in resource allocation. Compared to the unidentifiable victim, the identifiable victims get more attention from the allocator and were felt closer to them thus getting higher priority and more quantity of resources. Interestingly, we also found that in Experiment 1 when the participants get the extra resource, he/she would compensate the unidentifiable victim who was neglected in their first aid. Importantly, we found that one sub-component of empathy (i.e., empathic concern) plays a moderating role in the identifiable victim effect in resource allocation, such that people with higher scores of empathic concerns were less influenced by the identifiability of the victims, thus behaving more fairly, which means empathy as a trait did not enhance injustice, but played a role in curbing injustice, allowing decision-makers to better consider the needs of each helping object. These findings shed light on how to promote fairness in resource allocation to maintain social stability. It also has implications for future research in the field of empathy, that is, we should deeply explore the driving role of each sub-component of empathy on social behaviour to understand the psychological mechanism of empathy more comprehensively and deeply. Further, the present findings can also help us refine our understanding of social behavior defects observed in people with empathy disorders, such as autism, antisocial personality and psychopathology.

Key words: Empathy, Identifiable victim effect, resource allocation, fairness, social distance