This paper investigates the factors that motivate people to host internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their homes, focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC has experienced prolonged conflict, resulting in the internal displacement of 5.7 million people, equivalent to approximately 6 percent of the country’s population.
The authors investigate the correlates of hosting IDPs including empathy, co-ethnicity, connections to local authority figures, household wealth, security concerns, and religiosity. The analysis is based on a survey in 2019 of 1,504 households in 15 villages in eastern DRC that were likely to receive an influx of IDPs. The survey collected household characteristics and measured empathy using a modified basic empathy scale. Actual hosting behavior was tracked through reports from village chiefs over a 10-month period following the initial survey. In 2021, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with five village chiefs and 150 randomly selected households in five villages to understand the matching process of IDPs with hosts. Additionally, the authors conducted an experiment with 1,500 participants, priming cognitive empathy through a perspective-taking exercise, and separately priming religiosity and obedience to authority.
Main results:
- During the 10-month period following the household surveys, 21 percent of surveyed households began hosting newly arrived IDPs who were strangers.
- Households with higher empathy levels were more likely to host IDPs. There was a 20 percentage-point difference in the likelihood of hosting between the most and least empathetic respondents.
- Households with connections to the village chief were more likely to host IDPs.
- Ethnicity, wealth, religiosity, and expectations of strategic benefits from hosting IDPs were not correlated with hosting behaviors.
- Households headed by men were more likely to host IDPs, suggesting that security concerns may play a role in hosting decisions.
- There was limited support for the idea that past experiences of violence increase empathy. While past violence was correlated with higher empathy, the effect was small.
- The interviews revealed that IDPs approached household heads more or less at random when seeking shelter, with no formal matching process. The village head was informed of newly arrived IDPs but did not arrange hosting. Empathy was confirmed as the main reason for hosting, while ethnicity did not play a significant role.
- Neither the perspective-taking exercise nor the appeals to religion or authority had a significant effect on hosting behavior compared to an untreated control group.
The study concludes that empathy is the primary driver of hosting decisions, surpassing other factors such as ethnicity, wealth, and religiosity. Consistent with the “altruism born from suffering” hypothesis, individuals who have experienced past violence tend to exhibit higher levels of empathy, although the effect size is small. Additionally, households headed by men or those with connections to local authorities are more likely to host IDPs, though these factors have a lesser impact compared to empathy. The authors also found that simple interventions aimed at increasing empathy levels, such as perspective-taking exercises or appeals to religion and authority, are not effective in the long term.