Psychology
Identifiable victim effect
One person's story moves us far more than numbers about thousands, so a single named face makes a problem impossible to ignore.
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2021Long Live the Prince
Puts one named boy, Kiyan Prince, stabbed at his school gates, into the game young players love, so knife crime gained a face they could not ignore.
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2017The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World
Gives extinction one name and face, Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, so a vanishing species became one bachelor asking for help.
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2014Most Shocking Second a Day
Follows one girl's year, from a birthday party to a single candle amid the wreckage, so she stands in for every child caught up in Syria's war.
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2013Only for Children
Adults see one child's face above a line about abuse only the child can see, so a hidden crime gets a single face that passers-by cannot shrug off.
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2013Immortal Fans
Has real patients on transplant waiting lists make the appeal and walk onto the pitch with the players, so fans meet the people their organs could save.
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2012Tips From Former Smokers ("Terrie")
Follows one named former smoker, Terrie, as she gets ready for the day, giving the toll of smoking a face and a voice that smokers could not shake off.
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2010Selinah
Follows one named woman, Selinah, every day for 90 days, so AIDS becomes a single face rather than a statistic, and donors responded in unprecedented numbers.
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2009COW ("Only Stwpd Cowz Txt N Drive")
Follows one named 17-year-old, Cassie, whose single text kills four people, so the danger of texting at the wheel becomes one girl's catastrophe.
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2005Not Even Once ("Just Once")
Follows one teenage girl whose 'just once' slides into stealing and sex for the drug, so meth's toll is a single face rather than a statistic.
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1971The Crying Indian ("People Start Pollution. People Can Stop It.")
One buckskin-clad figure paddling through industrial waste sheds a single tear as litter lands at his feet, giving pollution a face viewers could not look away from.
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1925Often a Bridesmaid but Never a Bride
Pins halitosis on one named woman, Edna, whom even her closest friends won't warn, so a vague hygiene worry becomes a single sad life readers fear could be their own.
Identifiable victim effect: where it comes from
People gave more money to help one named seven-year-old girl, Rokia from Mali, than when they were shown statistics about millions of people facing hunger (Small, Loewenstein and Slovic, 2007).
In ads it shows up as one face, one name or one story standing for a much larger problem, most often in charity and public-service work.