Singularity Effect

Definition

People are more willing to empathize with a single, identifiable person than large abstract groups. This means that the addition of more people doesn’t increase your willingness to help proportionally. On the opposite, your compassion fades as more people are involved. The Singularity Effect, combined with the Character Identification Effect and the Narrative Bias explains why you tend to remember stories with vivid characters much better than abstract statistics and data (see examples below).