# Brain study reveals what limits our compassion for large-scale and overseas crises

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2026/07/28/brain-study-reveals-what-limits-our-compassion-for-large-scale-and-overseas-crises/
- Published: 2026-07-28T09:48:16+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**New neuroscience research from the University of Sussex offers fundraisers a biological
explanation for two of the sector’s most stubborn challenges: why public concern
so often fails to scale with the size of a disaster, and why crises overseas struggle
to move donors as much as those closer to home.**

The study, published in the journal _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience_,
used MRI scans to examine how the brain processes information about real threats
to human life. Researchers Dr Dan Campbell-Meiklejohn and Dr Jo Cutler found that
neural responses were surprisingly muted both for large numbers of lives at risk
and for lives lost abroad, patterns the team links to two well-known phenomena in
charitable giving: **scope insensitivity** and **home-country bias**.

## Reading headlines

British participants were scanned as they read 200 headlines describing real events
in which anywhere from a single person to tens of thousands were at risk, either
in the UK or in one of 56 other countries. They then learned whether those people
had survived or died. As a comparison, participants also tracked genuine financial
risks to their own entries in a real cash prize draw.

## Advertisement

The contrast was stark. Brain activity linked to financial risk scaled up naturally
as the sums grew larger, while responses to human lives moved in the opposite direction,
broadly decreasing as the number of people at risk rose, wherever in the world they
were. For lives abroad, the researchers found a distinctive “inverted-U” pattern:
a very low response to a single life at risk overseas, a higher response for moderate
numbers, and then a collapse again for the largest numbers of victims.

The team also found that the brain’s emotion-related regions responded more strongly
to deaths than to survivals, but only when the victims were in the participant’s
home country. For events abroad, those same regions showed no measurable distinction
between people living and dying.

![Social Cognitive and Affective Nuroscience edition 21, cover](https://wfay6x.infiniteuploads.
cloud/2026/07/scan_21_1cover.jpg)

Image: Oxford University Press

**Dr Campbell-Meiklejohn**, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the
Social Motivation Lab at Sussex, said the biases may stem from human evolution in
small groups facing nearby threats, or from the media environment that shapes our
brains. “Living up to values that all lives matter equally may require all of us,
especially policy makers and communicators, to work together to overcome these limits
and save more lives both at home and abroad,” he said.

## Patterns rather than single explanation

The researchers caution that brain scans reveal patterns of activity rather than
a single explanation for behaviour. Follow-up responses suggested participants who
favoured local events often did so because those events felt more likely to affect
them or people they know. This suggests that self-protection, as well as differences
in empathy, may play a part.

For fundraisers and campaigners, the findings reinforce a familiar lesson with fresh
biological weight: statistics alone rarely mobilise generosity, and appeals built
around single, identifiable individuals may work with the grain of the brain rather
than against it.

The paper, _Diminished neural responses for greater numbers of lives at risk and
lives lost in foreign countries_, in _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience_,
Volume 21, Issue 1, 2026, is [open access](https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/21/1/nsag049/8728194).
Dr Campbell-Meiklejohn is keen to take the work forward through funding bids and
collaborations with media organisations; he [can be contacted](https://fundraising.co.uk/2026/07/28/brain-study-reveals-what-limits-our-compassion-for-large-scale-and-overseas-crises/da*******@*******ac.uk)
via the University of Sussex.