Insensitivity to the Value of Human Life: A Study of Psychophysical Numbing

David Fetherstonhaugh, Paul Slovic, Stephen Johnson and James Friedrich

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1997, vol. 14, issue 3, 283-300

Abstract: A fundamental principle of psychophysics is that people's ability to discriminate change in a physical stimulus diminishes as the magnitude of the stimulus increases. We find that people also exhibit diminished sensitivity in valuing lifesaving interventions against a background of increasing numbers of lives at risk. We call this "psychophysical numbing." Studies 1 and 2 found that an intervention saving a fixed number of lives was judged significantly more beneficial when fewer lives were at risk overall. Study 3 found that respondents wanted the minimum number of lives a medical treatment would have to save to merit a fixed amount of funding to be much greater for a disease with a larger number of potential victims than for a disease with a smaller number. The need to better understand the dynamics of psychophysical numbing and to determine its effects on decision making is discussed. Coauthors are Paul Slovic, Stephen M. Johnson, and James Friedrich. Copyright 1997 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1997
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