Several airlines and department stores have tie-ups with non-profit organisations that help poor children.

While I do not doubt your desire to help the poor, how often have you contributed to such cause in mid-air or at a store cash counter? If you are like most of us, you would have rarely donated in such places. Why?

Picture this. You are walking past a lake for a business meeting when you see a child trapped in the muddy water. You are wearing a dress worth, say, Rs 5,000.

Will you ruin your dress and possibly, the business meeting, to help the child? You will, of course, do so. It highly likely that the thought of ruining your dress would not have even occurred to you!

But will you donate Rs 5,000 if a non-profit organisation tells you that your contribution can help save a child's life?

You may not, perhaps, feel the urge to do so. In both cases, however, your cost was Rs 5,000 (assuming you indeed ruined your dress while saving the child). Why then did you act differently?

Bystander effect

Psychologists attribute this behaviour to a phenomenon called the bystander effect. It refers to instances when individuals do not help the person in distress when others are present. In other words, your decision to help is inversely related to the number of people present!

Now, consider the child trapped in the lake.

You were the only person around. You did not, therefore, hesitate to jump into the lake. In mid-air or at the department store, you do not feel the need to help because you know that there are several others who may contribute.

Sociologists call this diffusion of responsibility- because they are many people to help, you do not feel the urge to take action!

At another level, the bystander effect would affect your decision to donate depending on the information provided.

Consider a related experiment conducted by psychologists. One group of people was shown newspaper reports on how food shortages were killing million of people in Africa.

The other group was shown a photograph of a child suffering from extreme malnutrition.

The group which saw the photo donated more than the group which simply read the reports! Why?

Our decision to donate is a function of empathy. Asking for a donation to help a child does not trigger empathy as much as seeing a photo of a child in distress!

Airlines and department stores should borrow a leaf or two from such sociology and psychology experiments; for generating empathy is certainly a powerful way to collect sizable donations to help the poor!

(The author is the founder of Navera Consulting. He can be reached at enhancek@gmail.com)