title: Empathic concern drives costly altruism.
abstract: Why do we self-sacrifice to help others in distress? Two competing theories have emerged, one suggesting that prosocial behavior is primarily motivated by feelings of empathic other-oriented concern, the other that we help mainly because we are egoistically focused on reducing our own discomfort. Here we explore the relationship between costly altruism and these two sub-processes of empathy, specifically drawing on the caregiving model to test the theory that trait empathic concern (e.g. general tendency to have sympathy for another) and trait personal distress (e.g. predisposition to experiencing aversive arousal states) may differentially drive altruistic behavior. We find that trait empathic concern--and not trait personal distress--motivates costly altruism, and this relationship is supported by activity in the ventral tegmental area, caudate and subgenual anterior cingulate, key regions for promoting social attachment and caregiving. Together, this data helps identify the behavioral and neural mechanisms motivating costly altruism, while demonstrating that individual differences in empathic concern-related brain responses can predict real prosocial choice.
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK. Electronic address: Oriel.FeldmanHall@nyu.edu.
authors.forename: Oriel
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: FeldmanHall
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dalgleish
authors.affiliation: Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK.
authors.forename: Davy
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Columbia University, Department of Psychology, 370 Schermerhorn Hall 1190 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027, USA.
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mobbs
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000533:Altruism; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002421:Caudate Nucleus / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Altruism; Caudate; Distress; Empathy; Moral; Subgenual ACC; VTA