What is it about?
When people see images of civilians suffering in distant wars, they often feel moved to help, but not equally for every group. This research followed observers in Ireland, the UK, and across Europe as they watched videos depicting the experiences of civilians affected by the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine conflicts. Across four studies, watching these accounts increased empathy and willingness to support the people shown, even among viewers with no personal connection to either conflict. Empathy was the consistent driver of that willingness to help. The studies also found that support was not distributed evenly. Seeing one group's suffering sometimes increased concern for them specifically, and a sense that the situation was unjust made people feel more empathy, which then predicted greater willingness to act. Notably, exposure to one conflict could shift how people responded to a completely different one shown alongside it.
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Photo by Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Public attention and support for humanitarian crises are not simply a matter of how much people are suffering. This research shows that emotional and cognitive responses to distant conflicts are shaped by which group is shown, how suffering is framed, and what else the viewer has recently seen. For organizations doing humanitarian communication, this means the same factual severity of harm can generate very different levels of public concern depending on presentation and context. Understanding these mechanisms can help explain uneven public engagement across crises and inform more balanced approaches to how suffering is communicated.
Perspectives
This project grew out of a simple but uncomfortable observation: people do not respond to all suffering equally, even when the suffering is comparable. I wanted to understand the psychological steps behind that gap rather than simply describe it. What stood out most was how early empathy and a sense of injustice intervene, often before someone has consciously weighed the politics of a conflict. That mechanism feels important to name, because it shapes which crises receive public attention and which quietly fall outside it.
Dr Islam Borinca
National University of Ireland Maynooth
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Empathy, Perceived Injustice and Solidarity‐Based Action: Observer Responses to Civilian Suffering in Military Conflicts, European Journal of Social Psychology, March 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.70065.
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