Authors
Jon K Maner, Carol L Luce, Steven L Neuberg, Robert B Cialdini, Stephanie Brown, Brad J Sagarin
Publication date
2002/11
Journal
Personality and social psychology bulletin
Volume
28
Issue
11
Pages
1601-1610
Publisher
Sage Publications
Description
To investigate the existence of true altruism, the authors assessed the link between empathic concern and helping by (a) employing an experimental perspective-taking paradigm used previously to demonstrate empathy-associated helping and (b) assessing the empathy-helping relationship while controlling for a range of relevant, well-measured nonaltruistic motivations. Consistent with previous research, the authors found a significant zero-order relationship between helping and empathic concern, the purported motivator of true altruism. This empathy-helping relationship disappeared, however, when nonaltruistic motivators (oneness and negative affect) were taken into account: Only the nonaltruistic factors of oneness (merged identity with the victim) and negative affect mediated helping, whereas empathic concern did not. Evidence for true altruism remains elusive.
Total citations
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Scholar articles
JK Maner, CL Luce, SL Neuberg, RB Cialdini, S Brown… - Personality and social psychology bulletin, 2002