Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
Three experiments tested whether empathy evokes egoistic motivation to share vicariously in the victim's joy at improvement (the empathic-joy hypothesis) instead of altruistic motivation to increase the victim's welfare (the empathy-altruism hypothesis). In Experiment 1, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy for a young woman in need were given a chance to help her. Some believed that if they helped they would receive feedback about her improvement; others did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss induced to feel either low or high empathy were given a choice of getting update information about a needy person's condition. Before choosing, they were told the likelihood of the person's condition having improved--and of their experiencing empathic joy--was 20%, was 50%, or was 80%. Results of none of the experiments patterned as predicted by the empathic-joy hypothesis; instead, results of each were consistent with the empathy-altruism hypothesis.
Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence 66045-2160.
C D
CD
Batson
J G
JG
Batson
J K
JK
Slingsby
K L
KL
Harrell
H M
HM
Peekna
R M
RM
Todd
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000533:Altruism; D001143:Arousal; D004645:Empathy; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans