Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, Vol. 00, No. 00, 2012, pp. 1--4

The Role of Empathy in Responding to NaturalDisasters: Comment on “Who Helps Natural DisasterVictims?”

Jillian C. Banfield∗ and John F. DovidioYale University

Comment on Marjanovic, Struthers, and Greenglass (2012). We build on the au-thors’ ideas, data, and interpretations to suggest future avenues for research,focusing on situations that hold potential for empathic concern to shape helpingresponses. Specifically, we suggest investigating the time course of reactions tonatural disasters and the group membership of the victims as moderators. Addi-tionally, we suggest that considering different forms of helping responses and theirpredictors can shed theoretical light on variables that promote helping followingnatural disasters.

Marjanovic, Struthers, and Greenglass (2012) address an understudied aspectof prosocial behavior and present stimulating new data. The authors pose thequestion of whether the same variables that promote helping in general also pro-mote helping following natural disasters. Practically, understanding and promotingprosocial behavior in response to natural disasters can have social benefits.

Theoretically, examining prosocial responses to natural disasters can uncoverhow these dynamics differ from responses to interpersonal forms of helping,which is the primary historical focus of social psychological research on thistopic. Recent investigations have demonstrated that people express more sympa-thy for individuals than for groups (Cameron & Payne, 2011; Kogut & Ritov,2005) and rarely experience empathic concern in response to group needs (Batsonet al., 1997). These affective reactions are critical elements in prosocial moti-vation. Researchers should not assume, then, that factors that promote helpingin inter-individual paradigms operate in the same way in response to groups ofvictims of natural disasters.

∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jillian Banfield, Depart-ment of Psychology, Yale University, Box 208205, New Haven, CT 06520-8205 [e-mail:jillian.banfield@yale.edu].

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DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-2415.2012.01285.x C© 2012 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

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Marjanovic et al.’s research provides insights into prosocial responses tonatural disasters and how these reactions may differ from inter-individual helping.Specifically, Marjanovic et al. concluded that trait variables “account for littleunique variance in helping” and that “judgments of human responsibility predictedhelping when participants were familiar with the target disaster . . . but did notpredict helping when the disaster was unfamiliar.” Although the results the authorsreport contribute to the literature on prosocial behavior, we believe that the studiesare important for the new questions they raise, beyond the questions they answer.

In this commentary, we raise issues that build upon the authors’ findingsbut emphasize the importance of considering (1) recency of disasters, (2) groupmembership of victims, and (3) types of prosocial responses to understandingmore fully responses to prosocial dynamics to natural disasters and to others’needs more generally.

Timing of Exposure to Disasters

In Marjanovic and colleagues’ studies, the disasters occurred in the distant(Study 1) or recent past (Study 2), but real life appeals for donations usually occurduring unfolding disasters. Future research might productively consider how thetime course of natural disasters affects prosocial responses. Skitka (1999) arguedthat, at first, a natural disaster is perceived as uncontrollable and evokes sympathy.This immediate, affectively based reaction promotes helping. Over time, however,people begin to make cognitively based causal attributions for the events. Theseattributions may take the form of victim blame (Skitka, 1999) or attributionsof blame to others. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, for example, people alsoattributed much of the blame to the government for its slow response. Regardless ofthe target of blame, cognitive reappraisal of events alters and potentially decreasesemotional experience (Gross, 2002). Decreasing the emotional potency of the eventwould also decrease the influence of empathic concern on responses (Davis, 1983).Thus, the recency of the disaster would likely moderate the emotional impact ofthe event, and therefore the influence of individual differences in empathic concernon helping.

Group Membership of Victims

In both of the current studies, the victims of the disasters were outgroupmembers. Additionally, familiarity with the outgroups—Busanians in Study 1and Americans in Study 2—differed substantially. Future research should sys-tematically investigate how the group membership of the victims, including thedistinction between ingroup and outgroup victims, affects prosocial responsesto natural disasters. People feel more empathy for similar than dissimilar others(Batson, Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995), and are more likely to attribute uniquely

The Role of Empathy in Responding 3

human emotions to ingroup victims than outgroup victims (Cuddy, Rock, & Nor-ton, 2007). Additionally, empathic concern is more predictive of helping when therecipient belongs to the ingroup than to the outgroup (Sturmer, Snyder, & Omoto,2005). Thus, empathic concern may have divergent effects on willingness to helpingroup and outgroup victims of natural disasters.

Types of Prosocial Reactions

One consistent finding in the Marjanovic et al. research is that differentfactors predicted responses to the intention and behavioroid measures. When con-sidered simultaneously with other predictors, empathic concern predicted helpingintentions but not donation. Instead, both studies demonstrated Responsibility× Perspective Taking interactions for the donation measure. Thus, the authors’conclusion that empathy, as a trait variable, accounts for little unique variancein helping characterizes the results for the behavioroid measure, but is inconsis-tent with the findings for the helping intention measure. The authors’ conclusionis understandable, given their assessment that “predicting expressions of actualhelp takes precedence over helping intentions.” However, other interpretationsexist.

Rather than conceptualizing helping intentions as a poor proxy of actual help-ing, willingness to help and donating lottery tickets may represent different typesof prosocial responses. Indeed, the relationship between the intention and behav-ioroid measures was weak in both studies, rs = 0.13 and 0.23. Perhaps willingnessto help is a more spontaneous, global, and affectively driven reaction, whereas thedonation measure represents a more deliberative, specific, and cognitively calcu-lated response. Considering the two measures as different types of responses mightindicate that the divergent results for these measures can theoretically inform anunderstanding of predictors of prosocial responses to natural disasters. As Millarand Tesser (1986) noted, some responses are more cognitively driven, while oth-ers are more driven by affect. Empathy, then, should affect forms of helping thatcapitalize on affective responses, such as when people were able to channel theirempathic impulses into donating by text message as the 2010 Haiti earthquakeunfolded.

In summary, we believe that a more nuanced understanding of helping inresponse to natural disasters requires investigation of variables associated withdisasters. We considered the roles of group membership, type of prosocial reac-tions, and timing of prosocial disasters; there are many other potential dimensionsof disasters (e.g., whether the events were unanticipated) that could shed addi-tional light on the dynamics of prosocial behavior generally. Exploring variablesthat engage emotional responses can inform an understanding of when individualdifferences in empathic concern affect helping and how to intervene to increasehelp following natural disasters.

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JILLIAN C. BANFIELD is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology at Yale University.Her research focuses on prosocial behavior and intergroup relations.

JOHN F. DOVIDIO is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University. His researchfocuses on issues of social power and social relations, both between groups andbetween individuals.