The ALS
ice-bucket challenge is not just about raising money to combat a horrible
disease. It’s about a person: Pete Frates, the 29-year-old former captain of Boston
College’s baseball team.
Peter Frates is a 29 year old former Division 1 college athlete as the Captain of Boston
College Baseball who was recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The campaign
first took off in New England as Frates’s friends, neighbors, and classmates
joined in and posted their ice-dumping videos in honor of him on YouTube and
Facebook.
People are
more likely to support an individual tied to a cause than a cause that affects
many individuals. The way that some academics put it is that we care more about
“identifiable” victims than “statistical” victims. One study, for instance,
found that people contributed more to a charity if their contributions went to
a pre-selected family than they did if their contributions went to a
to-be-selected family, all else equal.
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