The Nurturing Empathy and Participating in Charity - Assignment Example

Does Fostering Empathy Increase Charitable Giving? Learner’s Affiliated Institute In the situations in which a person(s) is in a difficulty, he/ she needs help from the people who are not in the same problem. For a person to see the sense in helping the needy, one needs to put himself/ herself in the perspective of the person in need. Empathy as explained by (Davis, 1994), is the ability to put oneself in the perspective of the needy person, so as to get the sense of helping the person. In this study, the main aim was to identify whether fostering empathy plays a role in increasing charitable giving. The study had a sample size of 160 respondents, all of whom were psychology students. The result of the study indicated that a person is likely to take part in charitable giving, when he/ she thinks in the perspective of the other (the person in need). Introduction In the day to day life, people find themselves in situations that they need to get help from others. For instance, when a region that is located near an ocean is washed off by Tsunami, it may leave many people homeless, and all their properties lost. In such scenarios, the affected may need to get help from those not affected by the calamity. Yet another scenario would be seen in a case where a child with a rare health condition is born in a poor family. For the child’s medical requirements to be financed, the parents may need to seek help from well-wishers. However, as explained by Willer, Wimer & Owens (2015), it has never been easy to convince people to take part in charity giving. For this reason, concern has sailed on the various ways through which more people can be convinced to participate in charity giving. Researches as well as observations have been made on the effective ways of pleading with people to take part in charity giving. Among the recent researches in the area, is the research done by (Kim & Kou, 2014). The researchers indicated that; soliciting for empathy never guarantees charitable giving. This argument supports the findings of Warren and Walker’s (1991), who found out that fostering empathy had little effect on increasing the possibility of people participating in charity giving. A new view of the impact of empathy fostering the participation in charitable events was suggested by (Batson, Early, and Salvarani, 1997). They explained that, depending on the nature in which empathy is fostered, it causes different perspectives. The perspectives as outlined by the authors are either self-condition or other-condition. In the self-condition, the person on whom empathy is sought, thinks of how it would feel if he/she was the victim of the situation in question. For this reason, the person finds little or no need to help the victim, as he/ she thinks of the ways through which s/he could avoid being a victim of the same in the future. The other-condition perspective, puts the person in the shoes, of the victim, and hence being likely to sympathise with the victim, and consequently taking part in the charity giving. Despite the suggestions posed by (Batson, Early, and Salvarani 1997), little has been done to ascertain if the two perspectives affects the chances of people being persuaded to take part in charity events. For this reason, there has been a need for research on the impact of the two perspectives on the participation in charity giving. This study aimed to fill the gap, by investigating the effect of the two perspectives on the participation in charity giving. The hypothesis of the study was that, the other-condition perspective has a bigger impact in increasing charity contribution than the self-perspective. Method The process of executing this study was mainly dictated by the nature of the study. The study was structured in a way to allow collection of the most significant information, without biases. The main steps followed in the study as discussed below. Participants The participants in the study would greatly determine the quality of the collected information. A decision on the most appropriate study population had to be made. Since the campaign is the one of the main ways through which empathy is sought, the study populations required to be composed of intellects, who could understand how email campaigns are applied in empathy seeking. After a thought decision on the appropriate participant, a decision was made that; the participant should be psychology students. The sample group was obtained from the population, through the use of the combination of the stratified and random methods of sampling. The reason for the choice of this combination of data collection methods was to ensure that the collected data would be free from biases, by giving every member of the population equal chances of being selected. An initial sample of 200 participants was selected, and willingness of the members chosen sought. This was because, the study required to have members willing to volunteer information, since the participation was non-paid and free from academic benefits. To implement this condition, the selected participants were issued with a letter each, which explained that participation in the study would be voluntary, and hence would not attract any benefits in the form of allowances or educational privileges. Due to this condition, the sample size was further narrowed down to 160 participants. Out of the 160 participants, 19 were females, with the remaining 141 participants being males. The table below shows the composition of the participants. Gender Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Male 141 88.1 88.1 88.1 Female 19 11.9 11.9 100.0 Total 160 100.0 100.0 Materials The main material used in the study was letters. Each participant was issued with a letter, explaining the problem “Homelessness.” Based on the perspective assigned, the participant was required to score his/ her willingness to take part in the charity event, by use of a scale of 1-7. Design The study divided the participants into two groups, regardless of the gender. Each group was assigned as a condition, as either self-condition or other-condition. Each participant was required to imagine about the problem at hand, in the assigned perspective (as per group), and then think of his/ her willingness to participate in the charity event, assuming that it was real. The degree of willingness was indicated on the paper, on a scale from 1-7, with 1 representing little willingness, and 7 highest degree of willingness. Procedure During the actual data collection day, each participant was issued with a letter, which contained the statement of the problem. The letters outlined the problem as “homelessness,” and urged that respondent to gauge their willingness to take part in the charity contribution, based on the assigned on the assigned perspective. The participants were divided into two equal groups (80 each). Each group was assigned a perspective (one self-condition, and the other other-condition). Sufficient time was given to the respondents, to conceptualize the situation and a genuine response. The completed papers were then collected, and after that data analysis followed. The data analysis step involved a comparison between impacts of the two perspectives on the willingness to participate in the charity giving event. The analysis was done using SPSS software. One of the most important analysis was to do a cross-tabulation of the perspectives and the levels of willingness to contribute in the charity event. The cross tabulation report was developed, which also included a graph of the levels of willingness to contribute based on the perspectives. The other test that was done was the correlation between gender and level of contribution based on the perspectives. The essence of this analysis was to identify if gender had any effect on the ability of the person to be willing to participate in the charity event, even after thinking from a particular perspective. Ethics The ethical perspective of the study was on the confidentiality of the data collected. The participants were assured that the data collected from them would be treated with utmost confidentiality and that it would at no point be used for commercial gains. The participants were also urged to give a self-driven response to the study, and not to be influenced by their colleagues into giving a biased response. Results The results obtained from the study indicated that there was no significant correlation between the gender and the chances of participation in the charity event. For this reason, being from of a particular gender has little/ no influence on whether the person would be empathetic enough to participate in the charity giving. The table below shows the results on the correlation. Correlations Prepared to donate? Gender Prepared to donate? Pearson Correlation 1 -.053 Sig. (2-tailed) .504 N 160 160 Gender Pearson Correlation -.053 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .504 N 160 160 The results on the impact of the self-condition and the other-condition on the impact on participation in charity giving, indicated that a person would more likely to take part in the charity giving if he/she thinks from the other’s perspective. The graph below shows the various levels of contribution willingness based on the two perspectives. From the graph, it is clear that most of those who would be willing to contribute in the charity event at a level of 6-7 were from the other-condition perspective. The actual values of participants at each level can be seen from the cross tabulation below. Case Processing Summary Cases Valid Missing Total N Percent N Percent N Percent Condition of the empathy * Prepared to donate? 160 100.0% 0 .0% 160 100.0% Condition of the empathy * Prepared to donate? Crosstabulation Count Prepared to donate? Total 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.50 7.00 Condition of the empathy other-condition 0 0 1 5 6 10 11 11 12 10 6 8 80 self-condition 1 5 6 9 10 11 10 10 7 9 1 1 80 Total 1 5 7 14 16 21 21 21 19 19 7 9 160 From the crosstabulation table, looking at the participants who would be willing to contribute in the charity event at the level between 5-7 in both cases would be as flows:- Self-condition perspective = 11 participants Other-condition perspective = 24 participants The interpretation of the above findings as a percentage would imply that; 68.6% of the participants who would participate in the charity giving with willingness level between 5-7 would have thought in the other-condition perspective. This finding leads to the acceptance of the null hypothesis (h0), that; the other-condition perspective increases the chances of charity contribution than the self-condition perspective. Correlation in perspective and level of willingness The test on the correlation of the perspective taken and the level of the willingness of the participant was a positive value (.339), at the significance level of 0.01. This indicates that perspective plays a major role in influencing a person in the decision to participate in charity giving. The table below shows the correlation. Correlations Prepared to donate? Condition of the empathy Prepared to donate? Pearson Correlation 1 .339** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 160 160 Condition of the empathy Pearson Correlation .339** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 160 160 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Discussion From the study results, it was found that there was a correlation between the perspective taken and the level of likelihood of participating in the charity giving. The results further indicated that the participants who thought in the other-condition perspective are more likely to take part in charity giving. These findings support the hypotheses of the study, which predicted that those people who think in the other-condition perspective would be more likely to contribute towards charity giving. In this respect, a conclusion can be drawn that, the fostering of empathy can be more effective if it makes the targeted group think in the other-condition perspective. This research lacked the scientific basis in proving the validity and reliability of the results obtained. This is mainly because the methods of data collection could not guarantee against the deliberate choice of willingness level. For this reason, any future study in the area should consider using more scientific methods of data collection. Reference Batson, C. D., Batson, J. G., Slingsby, J. K., Harrell, K. L., Peekna, H. M., & Todd, R. M. (1991). Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 61(3), 413 – 426. Kim, S., & Kou, X. (2014). Not All Empathy Is Equal: How Dispositional Empathy Affects Charitable Giving. Journal Of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 26(4), 312-334. doi:10.1080/10495142.2014.965066 Warren, P. E., & Walker, I. (1991). Empathy, effectiveness and donations to charity: Social psychology’s contribution. British journal of social psychology, 30(4), 325 – 337. Willer, R., Wimer, C., & Owens, L. (2015). What drives the gender gap in charitable giving? Lower empathy leads men to give less to poverty relief. Social Science Research, 52, 83- 98. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.014 Read More