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multifoliaterose comments on Reason is not the only means of overcoming bias - Less Wrong
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It asks: "What if it was my daughter?" Then I would spend to save her.
...but it is not my daughter - and that would make an enormous difference to most humans who are in reasonable working order. Is anybody really taken in by the counter-factual "What if it was my daughter" line? It seems like a straightforward case of attempted manipulation to me.
It is in a charity's interests to fool people to thinking prospective aid recipients are akin to family members. So, they are inclined to encourage the association - thus attempting to manipulate viewers. However, it is basically a simple psychological trick - intended to part the individual from their money.
I see a lot of this sort of thing. Charities - with the best of aims - are using much the same box of tricks that con-artists do.
The point of the What if your daughter was the "drop in the bucket"? line in the linked video is not to convince you that saving some stranger's daughter is equivalent to saving your own daughter.
The point of the What if your daughter was the "drop in the bucket"? line is to highlight the fact that that if it was your daughter, it would mean a lot to you if somebody helped her out and that it's the same for people in the developing world. That there are real individuals involved who have something in common with you - not just some amorphous blob of "poor people in the developing world."
The effect seems to be to create a sympathetic helpful mood in the watcher - by getting them to imagine the problem affecting their own daughter - and then switching the context to: helping a stranger in Africa. This sort of technique is often known as framing.
Of course, whether being manipulated into giving away your cash is a good thing or not seems to depend rather on your perspective.
I agree that the video engages in framing. The point is that framing is always present. The "(cue the skepticism)" segment of the video and people who say similar such things are also engaging in framing.