Understanding Refugee Assistance: Evidence on Syrian and Ukrainian Refugees in Poland
2026-06-06
Who helps refugees, and which refugee profiles attract more aid? Drawing on a representative face-to-face survey in Poland (N = 2,500), we examine how dispositional and situational empathy, and their interaction, shape assistance to refugees from the Global South (Syria) and Global North (Ukraine). We find that dispositional empathy, a stable personality trait reflecting the capacity to understand and share others’ emotions, strongly predicts helping behavior. By contrast, a perspective-taking experiment designed to activate situational empathy, a transient, target- and context-specific emotional response, had no effect. A conjoint experiment shows that respondents prioritize refugees in greater humanitarian need over those with higher economic potential, and that individuals with high dispositional empathy are especially responsive to vulnerability cues. By distinguishing between dispositional and situational empathy, integrating behavioral and attitudinal measures of helping, and comparing responses to Global North and South refugees, this study advances the understanding of the psychological underpinnings of prosocial behavior.