Perspective-taking of a similarly-situated single victim increases donations for multiple victims

Prior research has shown that people are more willing to help a single beneficiary than multiple beneficiaries. The present research provides a strategy for charities to collect as many donations for multiple beneficiaries as for a single beneficiary, namely, prompting potential donors to engage in perspective-taking of a single victim prior to requesting donations for similarly situated multiple beneficiaries. This prior-perspective-taking intervention significantly increases donations for multiple beneficiaries. Although people do not tend to naturally take the perspectives of multiple beneficiaries, an intervention requesting individuals to do so was effective. This prior perspective-taking intervention resulted in greater self-other overlap, that is, potential donors had the psychological sense of increased merged identity with the multiple beneficiaries, and in turn led to greater donations for those multiple beneficiaries. The present research proposes that charities use prior-perspective-taking interventions on campaigns where a single beneficiary cannot be identified (e.g., clear water projects). In each of the two experimental studies (total N = 800), two factors (the number of beneficiaries and prior perspective-taking) were manipulated and a mediator (self-other overlap or the degree of perspective-taking) was measured.