Why we don't care about Darfur.(bodywise: mind)(social problems and its effects)

MORE THAN 200,000 PEOPLE dead in Darfur.

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Tens of thousands of women raped in eastern Congo.

One million killed by malaria each year, mostly in Africa, where 3,000 children alone are dying every day.

How can we read numbers like this and five minutes later be wondering whether to order the Tuscan Chianti or French Zinfandel? In his most recent paper, psychologist Paul Slovic, PhD, suggests that when we're hit with a figure like "one million dead," the brain is simply not up to the task of processing it: "Psychic numbing" kicks in, and we don't feel anything, emotionally or in the gut. This mental deadening, he believes, is a protective mechanism to keep us from exploding with grief. Unfortunately, it's also a "fundamental deficiency in our humanity," says Slovic, who is president of Decision Research, a nonprofit think tank in Eugene, Oregon, that investigates how individuals, industries, and governments make choices. And it's partially why, in the face of repeated genocide, good people have historically failed to act.

It's not that they are heartless. Think of baby Jessica, who fell in a well in Midland, Texas. Images of the submerged toddler inspired nearly $700,000 in donations from strangers across the country. When a 2-year-old terrier was stranded on a tanker in the Pacific, the Hawaiian Humane Society spent $48,000--mostly from contributions--to rescue the dog, an amount that could feed hundreds of Hawaii's homeless humans for more than a month, as one local paper pointed out. But the value we attach to a single life diminishes as the count goes up. As Joseph Stalin, a man not known for his psychological acumen, reportedly commented, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic," Even a shift from one victim to two, Slovic's research shows, can dampen the empathetic response.

In one of his studies, Slovic asked three groups of subjects to give money to desperately poor children in Mali, Africa: the first group to a little girl, the second to a boy, and a third to both kids. In the final tally, the last group coughed up the least. Another study asked subjects to contribute to a lifesaving treatment: They could donate to one sick child or a group of eight. Participants gave far more to the individual than to the group.