The Identifiable Victim Effect: A Psychological Truism Reconsidered

<p>The identifiable victim effect is the tendency for a single, identified individual to generate more prosocial support than large groups or anonymous victims. The effect has become received wisdom in psychological science and a guiding principle in advocacy practice. However, empirical evidence for the effect is surprisingly fragile. We meta-analyzed 266 identifiable victim effect sizes (N=344,962) and found the overall meta-analytic effect was not significant (r=.04, p=.057). The only significant effect emerged for child victims, but this effect was very small (r=.07). These findings suggest a paradox: the identifiable victim effect is far less robust than its status in theory and practice would imply. We extrapolate from the analysis to discuss five possible reasons for how the identifiable victim effect came to achieve such wide influence inside and outside psychology despite limited empirical support. By combining quantitative synthesis of empirical evidence with a critical conceptual discussion, the paper speaks to a central challenge facing contemporary psychology: how the field should evaluate influential ideas when cumulative evidence diverges from prevailing scientific and public narratives.</p>