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The Leonard Lopate Show / April 26, 2007 / Underreported: Too Many to Care

Underreported: Too Many to Care

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Joseph Stalin said, "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who studies human judgment, decision making, and risk analysis, explores the truth behind that statement. He recently found that donations to aid a starving 7-year-old child in Africa declined sharply when her image was accompanied by a statistical summary of the millions of needy children like her in other African countries.


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  • [1] Laiah Raphael from Greenwich, CT April 26, 2007 - 01:40PM

    Is it a stretch to liken your piece about empathy, and to observe that we sit by passively while our government spends millions, billions and trillions of our dollars in ways in which we heartily disapprove, yet we complain bitterly when we have to pay an extra dollar in the supermarket?

    And in my own community, the government exhorts that recycling costs much too much money while they spend huge amounts on things that seem to me to be frivolous and wasteful ... Laiah Raphael
  • [2] Madeline Hatter from Atlanta, GA April 26, 2007 - 02:02PM

    The perception is true; at least, by response it is, although the opposite should be the case. A million deaths is a tragedy.

    I believe it has to do with people feeling swamped with millions, as if nothing can be done about the problem. Whereas, you can do something about 1 or 3 people in need. It goes back to Margaret Thatcher's TINA.

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