In 1994, the world watched in horror as genocide unfolded in Rwanda. Over the course of 100 days, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians were systematically murdered. The scale of the atrocity was unprecedented in its speed and brutality.
Written by Leif Stromnes, managing director, strategy and growth, DDB Australia.
News reports spoke of machete-wielding militias, mass graves, and rivers clogged with bodies. International aid organisations released statistics: 8,000 deaths per day, 333 deaths per hour, 5.5 deaths per minute.
Yet the world largely stood by and did nothing.
Compare this to what happened in 1993, when a single photograph of a child accomplished what a million statistics could not.
The image (below) showed a young Sudanese girl, collapsed from hunger, with a vulture lurking nearby, waiting for her to die.
Photographer Kevin Carter’s haunting picture from the famine-stricken region sparked an immediate and massive international response. Donations poured in from around the world. Aid organisations were flooded with volunteers. Politicians who had remained silent about statistical reports of widespread suffering suddenly found their voices.
This phenomenon has a name in psychology; the “identifiable victim effect.”
Research by psychologist Paul Slovic demonstrates that humans respond more powerfully to the suffering of a single, identifiable person than to statistical information about large groups in need.
In his landmark study, Slovic presented participants with information about a food crisis in Africa. One group received statistics; “food shortages in Malawi are affecting more than 3 million children.” Another group received the story of a single child; “Rokia, a 7-year-old girl from Malawi, is desperately poor and faces a threat of severe hunger or even starvation.”
The results were striking. People who read about Rokia donated more than twice as much money as those who received the statistical information.
When we hear a story about a single person, our mirror neurons fire as if we were experiencing their situation ourselves. We can imagine their face, their fear, their hope. But when confronted with statistics about thousands or millions, our empathy circuits simply shut down.
Brothers Chip and Dan Heath, in their bestselling book Made to Stick, refer to it as the ‘Mother Teresa effect’, named after the Nobel Prize winner’s famous observation “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Stories work because they provide what psychologists call “transportation”—the experience of being fully absorbed into a narrative. When we’re transported, our critical faculties are temporarily suspended, making us more susceptible to persuasion and emotional influence.
Evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar offers another explanation through his research on social group sizes. For most of human history, we have lived in tribes of roughly 150 people—a number now known as “Dunbar’s Number.” This theory suggests that we can maintain a cognitive limit of approximately 150 stable social relationships, a concept originating from the biologist’s research on primates. With that in mind, we know our brains have evolved to care deeply about individuals we could know personally, not abstract masses we could never hope to comprehend.
The implications for professional communicators are profound.
In our data-driven world, we often assume that more information leads to better decisions. But the reverse is frequently true.
Consider how charities have learned to apply this principle. Oxfam doesn’t lead with statistics about global poverty. They tell you about Maria who walks six hours a day to collect water for her family. World Vision doesn’t flood you with data about child mortality. They introduce you to Ahmed whose education was interrupted by conflict.
The same principle applies in business contexts.
When Airbnb wanted to build trust in their platform, they didn’t lead with statistics about their safety record or the number of successful bookings. Instead, they shared story after story of meaningful connections between hosts and guests—the elderly woman in Paris who became like a grandmother to young travellers, or the family in rural Ireland who helped stranded tourists when their car broke down. These stories did something no amount of data could accomplish; they made the abstract concept of staying in a stranger’s home feel personal, safe and emotionally rewarding.
Similarly, Southwest Airlines or Qantas don’t advertise their on-time performance statistics, they tell stories about reuniting families. And Apple doesn’t lead with technical specifications, they show how their products change individual lives.
This is also why personal testimonials are so much more powerful than product specifications and why case studies consistently outperform feature lists. It’s also why word-of-mouth remains such a compelling marketing tactic. The story of someone’s personal, mostly unbiased experience with a product will always carry far more emotional heft and meaning than superiority claims from a corporation.
Yet many organisations continue to overwhelm their audiences with data, believing that rational arguments are inherently more persuasive than emotional appeals.
This reflects the “curse of knowledge”—once we know something, we find it difficult to imagine not knowing it. Experts become so immersed in data that they forget how alienating it can be to those encountering it for the first time.
So, what is the role of statistics in persuasive communications?
They can provide crucial credibility and context, but they work best when they support a narrative, not when they replace one. The most effective communicators understand that humans are not computers. We don’t process information and then feel emotions about it. We feel emotions first and then use information to justify what we already want to believe.
Quite simply, if you want to change minds, don’t start with the spreadsheet, start with the story.
Or as Psychologist Susan David elegantly puts it: “Emotions are the new data.”
