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TESTING THE EMPATHY-ALTRUISM HYPOTHESIS
By Benjamin T. Mills Feelings of empathic concern for a person in need predicts helping of that person, but there are two competing theoretical explanations for this helping motivation. According to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis (EAH), the motivation produced byempathic concern is altruistic. However, an alternative explanation for this relationship is that empathic concern produces one or more egoistic motivations that alone or simultaneously are responsible for helping.
egoistic hypothesis (SEH). Specifically, 160 undergraduate students enrolled at the^ The goal of the present study was to test the EAH against this simultaneous University of Wisconsin Oshkosh were told that they and another ostensible student were participating in a study designed to analyze the effects of communication with another person on reactions to tasks and task performance. Participants received a written communication from the ostensible student who discussed a recent breakup with asignificant other. Perspective taking was manipulated to produce feelings of empathic concern for the ostensible student. Also manipulated across ten experimental conditions were dissimilarity to the ostensible student in need, likelihood of need improvement of the student, and ease of psychological escape from the person in need. Empathic concern for the person in need was measured, as was whether participants requested feedbackabout the ostensible student’s performance on a task that could potentially result in a positive outcome for the ostensible student. Results revealed evidence that all manipulations except for the psychological escape manipulation were successful. Consideration of feedback requests across all tenexperimental conditions provided no clear evidence of predictive superiority of either the EAH or SEH explanations. However, results across three critical test conditions suggested the pattern of requested feedback more closely resembled the predictions made by the EAH than those made by the SEH.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... vii
v TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) Page
- INTRODUCTION LIST OF FIGURES viii
- Defining Empathic Concern
- Defining Altruism
- The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis Egoistic Alternative Explanations to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
- Aversive Arousal Reduction
- Avoiding Negative Social Evaluation
- Avoiding Negative Self-Evaluation
- Seeking Social or Self-Rewards For Helping Empathic Joy
- Negative-State Relief
- Oneness
- Addressing the SEH
- Helping Opportunity No-Information vs. Imagine-Other (Dissimilar)
- Psychological Escape (Task Engagement)
- Likelihood of Need Reduction (Task Difficulty)
- Objective vs. Imagine-Other (Empathic Concern Manipulation) Dependent Variable
- Goals and Hypotheses of the Study
- METHOD
- Participants
- Procedure
- Introduction
- Role Assignment
- Manipulation of Empathic Concern Manipulation of Perceived Dissimilarity
- Psychological Escape Manipulation
- Outcome Measure of Participant’s Desire to Learn the Person in Need’s
- RESULTS
- Manipulation Checks
- Effectiveness of the Perspective Taking Manipulation
- Effectiveness of the Similarity Manipulation
- Effectiveness of the Likelihood of Need Improvement Manipulation
- Effectiveness of the Psychological Escape Manipulation
- Empathic Concern
- Request for Feedback
- DISCUSSION
- Limitations
- Future Directions and Conclusions
- TABLES
- FIGURE
- APPENDIX A: Informed Consent APPENDIXES
- APPENDIX B: Introduction
- APPENDIX C: Role Assignment Sheet - RECEIVER.................................
- APPENDIX D: Communication Instructions for RECEIVER (a) APPENDIX E: Communication Instructions For RECEIVER (b)
- APPENDIX F: Communication from SENDER
- APPENDIX G: Communication Reactions Questionnaire
- APPENDIX H: Communication Reactions Questionnaire
- APPENDIX I: Information about SENDER APPENDIX J: Perceptions of SENDER Questionnaire
- Improvement/Low Psychological Escape APPENDIX K: Task Assignments – High Chance Of
- Improvement/Low Psychological Escape APPENDIX L: Task Assignments – Low Chance Of
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LIST OF TABLES
Page Table 1. Ultimate goals for empathy-induced egoistic and altruistic helping .......................................................................... 47 Table 2. Desire for feedback about need by experimental condition according to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis and alternativeegoistic explanations .......................................................................... 48
Table 3. Means and standard deviations for manipulation check measures by experimental condition.................................................................. 49 Table 4. Contrast coefficients used to evaluate manipulation check and empathic concern measures ............................................................... 50 Table 5. Means and standard deviations for empathic concern and proportion requesting feedback by experimental condition ................................ 51
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LIST OF FIGURES
Page Figure 1. Model of Batson’s (2011) Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis ................ 52
precursors to empathic concern. For another to elicit empathic concern, one must perceive that other as being in need and one must value that other’s welfare. Nussbaum (2001) refers to this valuing of another as “value extension.” If one does not view another as being in need but does value that other’s welfare, then one will not experience empathic concern for that other. Conversely, if one feels ambivalent about the welfare of another, one will not feel empathic concern for that other even if that other is in need.
Defining Altruism Altruism is defined as a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare (Batson, 2011). Two main facets of this definition must be addressed. First, altruism is a motivational state, which means that the EAH does not account for people who are predisposed to be altruistic (trait altruism) but is instead concerned with whether an altruistic motivation is within the motivational repertoire of people in general. For the purposes of this definition, altruism is a goal-directed state. A reflexive action that benefits another with no benefit to one’s self is not considered an altruistic action according to this definition. One must have a goal to benefit another as an end itself for the action to be considered altruistic. The second part of the definition of altruism pertains to increasing another’s welfare. The difference between egoistic motivation and altruistic motivation is the person toward whom the motivation is directed. Both egoism and altruism are motivational states that seek to increase a person’s welfare. However, altruism seeks to ultimately benefit the other, whereas egoism seeks to ultimately benefit the self. This
difference is the focal point for at least eight potential egoistic motives that have been suggested to explain helping produced by empathic concern. The egoistic alternatives argue that a person who is motivated to benefit another is still acting egoistically because the person is either looking to gain a reward (e.g., feel good for helping), avoid a punishment (e.g., avoid feeling guilty for not helping), escape unpleasant arousal, or indirectly benefit aspects of the self. The EAH recognizes that egoistic motivation is often a driving force behind helping behavior. Where the egoistic alternatives and the EAH disagree is that the EAH assumes helping can be at least partially directed toward benefitting another as an end, whereas the egoistic alternatives assume helping is never directed toward benefitting another as an end.
The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis Coke, Batson, and McDavis (1978) originally framed the EAH, stating that altruism is created by feeling empathic concern for a person in need. As is shown in Figure 1, the perception of another as being in need and the valuing of that other’s welfare elicits empathic concern, which then produces an altruistic motivation to increase the other’s welfare by reducing the other’s need (Batson, 2011). This is not to suggest that altruism is the only product of perceiving need in another. The perception of need can lead to many egoistic motives as well as altruistic ones. Perceiving need in another may elicit empathic concern and altruistic motivation but the perception of need could also produce motivations to reduce the need of the other to achieve various egoistic goals. For instance, the avoidance of guilt is an egoistic motivation, but it may be congruent
There have been multiple studies addressing whether physical escape (Coke et al, 1978; Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Toi & Batson, 1982) and psychological escape (Stocks, Lishner, & Decker, 2009) reduces helping by those feeling empathic concern. The studies that addressed physical escape all used a similar paradigm in which participants were given an opportunity to help a person in need. In the easy- escape condition, participants were informed that they would not be faced with the other’s continued suffering if they chose not to help. In the difficult-escape condition, participants were informed that if they did not help the other in need, the participants would then continue to see the other suffering. The results of these physical escape studies showed that participants manipulated to experience high empathic concern for another were more likely to choose to help the other in need rather than escape, regardless of whether escape was easy or difficult. These results support the EAH. For the results to support the AARH, the high-empathic concern participants would have had to report that they were more likely to help the other in need only when escape was difficult. The main argument against the results of these physical escape studies is that the participants in the physical escape studies were offered only one route psychologically to escape the aversive empathic concern. If a participant chose not to help the other in need in the easy-escape condition, it is possible that he or she anticipated continued thoughts about the other in need and expected to continue feeling aversive empathic concern for that other. This explanation could account for the results shown in the physical escape studies and still maintain the AARH as a possible explanation of the findings. In response
to this possibility, Stocks et al. (2009) designed two experiments. In the first experiment participants in the easy-escape condition were told that they would receive memory training that would cause them to not remember the communication from the other in need after the study had concluded. In the difficult-escape condition, participants were told that they would receive memory training that would cause them to remember the other in need long after the experiment had concluded. By creating the belief that they would no longer feel empathic concern for the person in need after leaving the study, participants in the easy-escape condition were able to choose whether they would help without the threat of future aversive empathic concern. In the second experiment, the difficult-escape condition was replaced by a no information condition in order to test the assumption that empathic concern promotes desire for psychological escape. For the first experiment, contrast variables were created for both the AARH and the EAH and logistic regression analyses were conducted using those two variables. The results of the logistic regression using the AARH variable found no statistically significant results ( p=.38 ), the results of the logistic regression using the EAH variable, however, did achieve statistically significant results ( p =.02). This suggests that while there was no clear impact of ease of psychological escape on helping (as the AARH predicts) there is a clear indicator that perspective taking (empathic concern) had an effect on helping motivation (as the EAH predicts). The results of the second experiment were similar to those of the first in that a logistic regression using a contrast variable based on what the AARH would predict produced statistically nonsignificant results ( p =.41) and a contrast variable based on what the EAH would predict produced statistically significant results ( p < .05). In this
listened to a recording of a neutral announcement for an anthropology class to attain a base line arousal level for each participant. Following the first recording, all participants listened to a recording of a young woman asking for volunteers for her research project who were willing to participate for free as she had no money to compensate them. During this first recording, participants were manipulated to believe that their arousal levels were low. During the second recording, half of the participants observed their arousal levels rising, whereas the other half observed low arousal levels in line with those observed during the first recording. Afterwards, the participant received a helping opportunity in which the ostensible other asked (via a letter) if the participant would volunteer his or her time. Contrary to the predictions of the EAH, the results of this study suggested a significant drop in reported helping in the high empathic concern/social evaluation/low perceived arousal condition compared to the other high empathic concern conditions. In a study by Fultz et al. (1986), two experiments were conducted looking at empathic concern based helping behaviors and negative social evaluation. In each of these experiments, the participants were manipulated to believe that there was another participant volunteering in a separate room. The participants received two communications from the fictitious other. The first communication was introductory and innocuous, and the second communication was designed to elicit empathic concern and explained how the sender of the communications often felt lost and lonely. Following the second communication, the participants were given an opportunity to spend time with the other by participating in an additional study for no credit. This opportunity to volunteer for an additional study gave the participants an opportunity to help the other by easing his
or her loneliness without the risk of negative social evaluation as the participants were told that the other would never know if the participants declined. The second of the two experiments also manipulated levels of empathic concern (high versus low) as well as the potential for negative social evaluation for not helping (high versus low). The results for both experiments showed support for the EAH in that participants in the high empathic concern conditions ( M = 2.13) chose to help more often than did those in the low empathic concern conditions ( M = .94) regardless of the presence of risk for negative social evaluation. The ESP-Soc hypothesis was not supported. Avoiding negative self-evaluation. The second of the two ESP explanations pertains to avoiding negative self-evaluation (ESP-Self). ESP-Self proposes that feeling empathic concern produces motivation to avoid punishments administered to the self, as well as negative self-evaluation such as guilt that would result if one did not attempt to help another in need (Batson, 1987). As the punishment that one is attempting to avoid is originating from the self, it does not matter if the helping opportunity is public or private. However, if an individual chooses to help another in need, the helping must be effective at removing or reducing the need. If the helping fails to reduce or eliminate the other’s need, the helper will still experience the self-punishment. If the person chooses not to help the other in need, the person must have suitable justification for why he or she did not help or else the person will still experience the self-punishment (Batson, 2011). Six experiments were conducted to test the ESP-Self hypothesis against the EAH by Batson, Dyck, Brandt, Batson, Powell, McMaster, & Griffitt (1988). Four of these experiments were conducted using two different methods of eliciting empathic concern
Batson and Weeks (1996) conducted two experiments to compare the EAH and the ESP-Self hypothesis. In both experiments, participants were told that an ostensible participant was simultaneously taking part in the study and that he or she had electrodes attached to him or her. Participants were told that the electrode would administer a painful but not harmful shock to the ostensible other if both the other and the actual participants did not successfully complete an assigned task. The first experiment was designed so that the participants would always fail the task (failed to help), causing the fictitious other to receive the shock. Empathic concern (low vs high) and justification for not helping (low vs high) were manipulated in the first experiment. In the second experiment the same procedure was used, but now the participants were always told that they had succeeded in their task, whereas the ostensible other failed his or her task, resulting in a shock to the ostensible other. As in the first experiment, empathic concern (low vs high) was manipulated. Justification for not helping was not manipulated in the second study, as the participants were able to successfully complete their task thus providing an opportunity for the other to avoid the shock. In both experiments, participants' moods were measured both before and after the task to determine the participants’ reactions to the outcome of the study. As the EAH predicted, participants experienced more negative mood change in the high empathic concern condition than in the low empathic concern condition regardless of justification for not helping in both experiments. The ESP-Self hypothesis was not supported. Seeking social or self-rewards for helping. Similar but opposite to the empathy- specific punishment hypothesis, the empathy-specific reward hypothesis suggests that
feeling empathic concern increases motivation to obtain rewards for helping such as pride in one’s self or praise from others (Batson, 2011). To gain these rewards, one seeks to reduce or remove the need of another for whom he or she experiences empathic concern. The empathy-specific reward hypothesis includes three distinct egoistic explanations for the findings that support the EAH. The first of these three is empathy-specific social or self-rewards (ESR). According to the ESR hypothesis, one can receive social rewards for attempting to help, even if the attempt is unsuccessful. However, if the need is removed before one is able to attempt a helping behavior, one should experience a negative mood, as his or her opportunity for social or self-reward has been removed. The same two studies that examined the ESP-Self hypothesis also examined the ESR hypothesis in relation to the EAH (e.g., Batson et al., 1988; Batson & Weeks, 1996). Batson et al. (1988) conducted two experiments pertaining to the ESR hypothesis. In the first experiment, participants listened to an ostensible other participant speak about how nervous the ostensible other was about the potential painful shock they might receive during the study. Before being given an opportunity to help, the participants were told whether the other’s need still existed (prior relief versus no prior relief). The participants were also told whether they would perform a helping task. The previously discussed experiment using the Katie Banks protocol and the Stroop-like task were also used to examine the ESR hypothesis. In this experiment, participants were expected to take longer to state the color of written words that had to do with reward such as the word “praise.” The EAH predicted longer pauses when stating the color of need-relevant words such as “adopt” (Batson, 2011). In the first experiment, only participants in the high
