Empathy-altruism is a form of

altruism Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...

based on

moral emotions Moral emotions are a variety of social emotion that are involved in forming and communicating moral judgments and decisions, and in motivating behavioral responses to one's own and others' moral behavior. Background Moral reasoning has been the fo ...

or feelings for others.

Social exchange theory Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. The theory also involves economic relation ...

holds that in seemingly altruistic behavior benefits to the altruist outweigh the costs the altruist bears and thus such behavior is self-interested. In contrast, C. Daniel Batson holds that people help others in need out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The key ingredient to such helping is "

empathic concern Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by, and congruent with the perceived welfare of, someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like. Empa ...

". According to Batson's "''empathy-altruism hypothesis''", if someone feels

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

towards another person, they will help them, regardless of what they can gain from it. An alternative hypothesis is "''empathy-joy''", which states a person helps because they find pleasure at seeing another person experience relief (2008). When a person does not feel empathy, the standards of social exchange theory apply.

Evidence

Debate over whether other-helping behavior is motivated by self- or other-interest has raged over the last 20 years. The prime actors in this debate are

Daniel Batson C. Daniel Batson (born March 15, 1943) is an American social psychologist. He has two doctoral degrees, in theology (from Princeton Theological Seminary) and psychology (from Princeton University's Department of Psychology). Batson obtained his ...

, arguing for empathy-altruism, and

Robert Cialdini Robert Beno Cialdini (born April 27, 1945) is an American psychologist and academic. He is the Regents' Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and was a visiting professor of marketing, business and psychology ...

, arguing for

self-interest Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires (''interests'') of one's self. Most times, actions that display self-interest are often performed without conscious knowing. A number of philosophical, psychological, and economi ...

. Batson recognizes that people sometimes help for selfish reasons. He and his team were interested in finding ways to distinguish between motives. In one experiment, students were asked to listen to tapes from a radio program. One of the interviews was with a woman named Carol, who talked about her bad car accident in which both of her legs were broken, her struggles and how behind she was becoming in class. Students who were listening to this particular interview were given a letter asking the student to share lecture notes and meet with her. The experimenters changed the level of empathy by telling one group to try to focus on how she was feeling (high empathy level) and the other group not to be concerned with that (low empathy level). The experimenters also varied the cost of not helping: the high cost group was told that Carol would be in their psychology class after returning to school and the low cost group believed she would finish the class at home. The results confirmed the empathy-altruism hypothesis: those in the high empathy group were almost equally likely to help her in either circumstance, while the low empathy group helped out of self-interest (seeing her in class every day made them feel guilty if they did not help).

Countering hypotheses

Batson and colleagues set out to show that empathy motivates other-regarding helping behavior not out of self-interest but out of true interest in the well-being of others. They addressed two hypotheses that counter the empathy-altruism hypothesis: # Empathy Specific Reward: Empathy triggers the need for social reward which can be gained by helping. # Empathy Specific Punishment: Empathy triggers the fear of social punishment which can be avoided by helping.

References

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Evidence

Countering hypotheses

See also

References

Further reading