Social evaluation and the empathy-altruism hypothesis

Bibliographic Data

ID10168818
AuthorsJim Fultz (University of Kansas, corresponding author), Et Al, et al et al
Year1986
Volume50
Issue4
Pages761-769
Publication date1986-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037//0022-3514.50.4.761
PMID3712222
OpenAlexW2076245348
LanguageEN
Citations received34
References cited5

Archer, Diaz-Loving, Gollwitzer, Davis, and Foushee (1981) suggested that feeling empathy for a person in need may lead to increased helping because the empathic individual wants to avoid negative social evaluation. As support for this suggestion, they claimed that empathy leads to increased helping only under socially evaluative circumstances. We conducted two studies to test this claim. In Study 1 subjects were led to believe that no one--including the person in need--would ever know if they declined to help. In this situation, which was designed to be totally devoid of the potential for negative social evaluation for not helping, there was still a positive relationship between self-reported empathic emotion and offering help. In Study 2 empathy (low versus high) and social evaluation (low versus high) were manipulated in a 2 X 2 design. Once again there was a positive relationship between empathy and offering help when the potential for social evaluation was low as well as high. Results of both studies, then, suggest that the motivation to help evoked by empathy is not egoistic motivation to avoid negative social evaluation. Instead, the observed pattern was what would be expected if empathy evokes altruistic motivation to reduce the victim's need

Altruism (biology · Empathic concern · Empathy · Feeling · Helping behavior · Perspective-taking · Prosocial behavior · Test (biology · Behavioral Health and Interventions · Empathy and Medical Education · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology

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