Article

Unity in diversity: Exploring the effect of oneness with humanity on the willingness to donate to Syrian and Ukrainian refugees

Details

Citation

Bilgen E, Zagefka H & Bjornsdottir RT (2024) Unity in diversity: Exploring the effect of oneness with humanity on the willingness to donate to Syrian and Ukrainian refugees. Personality and Individual Differences, 222, Art. No.: 112591. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112591

Abstract
A sense of oneness with another person or group implies a sense of interconnectedness and overlap with that other, and perceived oneness has been found to foster willingness to help others in need. Despite its potential importance, little empirical research has explored the influence of sense of oneness on attitudes and behaviours towards refugees. This work addresses the question of whether encouraging a sense of oneness with all humanity can increase people's perceived oneness with specific refugee outgroups and, through this, willingness to donate to refugees to help them. People might often be reluctant to see overlap between themselves and outgroups, but perceived oneness with outgroups should increase if perceived oneness with all of humanity is salient. This means that increasing perceived oneness with all of humanity could potentially be a powerful lever to increase perceived oneness with refugees, and willingness to help them. In one exploratory (N = 165) and one preregistered confirmatory experimental study (N = 180), we show that individuals primed with the idea of oneness with all humanity reported heightened oneness with refugees, and this in turn predicted higher willingness to donate to both Syrian and Ukrainian refugees.

Keywords
Refugees; Helping; Oneness; Identity fusion

Journal
Personality and Individual Differences: Volume 222

StatusPublished
FundersUniversity of London
Publication date31/05/2024
Publication date online22/02/2024
Date accepted by journal13/02/2024
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/35893
PublisherElsevier BV
ISSN0191-8869
eISSN1873-3549

People (1)

Dr Thora Bjornsdottir

Dr Thora Bjornsdottir

Lecturer in Psychology, Psychology