Empathy and Altruism

Altruism

a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare *motivation to help moral question

empathy is defined as

"an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else."

To Ps in the difficult-escape condition

"if you decide to continue as the observer, I'll need you to observe Elaine's remaining eight trials. After you've done that and answered a few questions about your impressions of Elaine, you'll be free to go

To Ps in the easy-escape situation

"if you decide to continue as the observer, you've finished observing the two trials, so all you need to do is answer a few questions about your impression of Elaine and you'll be free to go"

For Ps in both escape conditions

"if you decide to help Elaine out by taking her place, then what will happen is that she'll come in here and observe you, and you will go in and preform the recall trials while receiving the shocks. Once you have completed the trials, you'll be free to go. What would you like to do?" Response to this question provided a measure of helping

Rhesus Monkeys; What is associated with personal distress ?

Aggressive behavior is associated with personal distress in rhesus monkeys

Paragons of Helpfulness

Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandi

Ease of Escape Manipulation

Ps were informed that if they did not take elaine's place - (difficult escape condition) would continue to observe her take the shocks - (easy-escape condition) they would not

Proponents of Egoism

Thomas Hobbes, Sigmund Freud, Richard Dawkins

How can we infer the nature of motivation →

conduct a conceptual analysis of various potential ultimate goals and observe the person's behavior in different circumstances

Kitty Genovese

people were disinclined to help because they could easily physically escape (close doors, windows, ignore her) and less consequences to refusing to help her (anonymity, assumption someone else will help)

The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

· Empathy generates an altruistic motivation to help The greater the empathic emotion, the greater the altruistic motivation Empathy is defined as "an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone else."

scope of our empathy

· Our capacity for altruistic caring is limited for those whom we feel empathy · When empathy for the person in need is low, the pattern of helping suggests underlying egoistic motivation o The research to date suggests that we only help when it is in our own best interest o We care for people instrumentally rather than altruistically

Batson

genuine altruism

A shocking Situation: Observing Elaine Preform under Aversive Conditions- what was manipulated

both ease of escape and empathy were experimentally manipulated

(Task 3): empathy-altruism hypothesis "hypothesis that evokes truly altruistic motivation: - empathy-specific punishment explanation

- If people are driven by empathy-specific punishment, they will show moderate levels of helping others under low justification for not helping and low empathy; - will show high levels of helping when empathy is high and justification is low; -will show low levels whenever there is high justification for not helping - (differs from the empathy-altruism hypothesis in that it predicts there will be high levels even when justification to not help is high given that empathy is high) - through socialization we learned that we are obligated to help others in order to avoid guilt: benefiting someone for who we feel empathy for is just a means to a self-serving end -If person helping to avoid shame then if providing info increasing justification for not helping-helping should drop -If person helping due to altruistic desire- rate of helping should remain high Results: Only among those feeling low empathy were those in high justification condition less likely to help than those is low justification condition

Aversive-Arousal Reduction (Rival Hypothesis #1 )

Feeling empathy for someone who is suffering is unpleasant, and empathically-aroused individuals help in order to eliminate their own unpleasant feelings · Benefitting the person for whom empathy is felt is simply a means to this self-serving end

Apes and Chimpanzees: What is associated with empathy?

Helping behavior is associated w empathy in apes and chimpanzees

Egoism

Motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing one's own welfare - added benefit that the other's suffering is relieved will more likely refrain from helping if the situation is easy to escape or if there are less consequences, or if they are told that it is understandable if they do not want to help -

(task 4)- Predictions from Negative-State relief version of empathy-specific reward explanation and empathy-altruism hypothesis in anticipated mood enhancement x empathy design

Results and findings: for both studies, results conformed to the empathy-altruism hypothesis and not the negative-state relief explanation Evidence explains that the goal of the empathetically aroused helpers is to increase the welfare of the person they feel empathy for (empathy-altruism hypothesis) If the empathy-altruism hypothesis is true, we must revise our views of the human capacity to care and accept the notion that we are far more social beings than we may have previously believed being altruistically motivated means we care about others well-being as a terminal value, not an instrumental one we help for their sake and not for our own Previous studies that found evidence supporting the negative-state relief hypothesis were fairly weak and not statistically reliable

Empathy-Specific Punishment (rival hypothesis #2)

Through Socialization, we have learned that we are obligated to help others in order to avoid the shame and guilt that we would feel when we failed to help o Benefiting the person for whom empathy is felt is simply a means to this self-serving end

How do we know a person's motivation?

example of Susie and Frank → helps highlight principles that are important when making inferences about another person's goals 1. we do not observe directly but rather infer 2. if we observe only a single behavior that can different ultimate goals, we cannot figure out the true ultimate goal 3. we can observe a person's behavior in different situations that involve a change in the relation between any ultimate goals

(Task 2) Aversive-arousal reduction explanation "predictions from aversive arousal reduction explanation and empathy-altruism hypothesis for rate of helping in escape x empathy design"

hypothesis: empathetically aroused individuals help in order to benefit themselves by reducing their empathic arousal; benefiting the victim is just a means to this end (aversive-arousal reduction explanation) Predicted that when escape was more difficult, there would be more help Predicted that even if escape was easy but the participants empathy was high, there would be more help Results found that this was not the case. If escape was easy regardless of participants empathy, they still were less likely to take the shock for the confederate

Possible egoistic goals of empathy induced helping:

reducing aversive empathy arousal, avoiding social and self punishments (shame and guilt), seeking social and self rewards

elaine's questionnare

reflected values and interests they were either - (high-empathy condition) very similar -(low-empathy condition) very dissimilar to those that the participants had expressed on their own questionnaire Questionnaire would provide information about her that may be helpful in forming an impression