Specificity of Empathy-Induced Helping: Evidence for Altruistic Motivation

Abstract

This experiment investigated altruistic vs. egoistic interpretations of the effect of empathic concern on helping. The empathy-altruism hypothesis posits that empathic concern arouses an altruistic motivation to relieve the distress of another person; the negative state relief interpretation proposes that the effect of empathic concern is mediated by sadness, which produces an egoistic motivation to reduce one's own unpleasant state. Male (n = 96) and female (n = 96) Ss first listened with an imagine or observe set to another persons problem and then were given an opportunity to help that person with he same problem or with a different problem. Consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis, imagine-set Ss helped more often than did observe-set Ss for the same problem but not for a different one. In addition, only empathic concern associated with the specific problem related to helping. Although sadness was related to helping, it did not account for the effect of empathic concern.