Dan
Batson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Kansas. His main research
interests are in prosocial emotion, motivation, and behavior. He has
conducted a number of experiments on empathy, on perspective taking, and on
various forms of prosocial motivation. Author of 'Altruism
in Humans'.
He formulated
the:
'empathy-altruism hypothesis' - "If we feel empathy towards a
person, we are likely to help them (in proportion to the empathy felt)
without any selfish thoughts. Otherwise, we will help them only if the
rewards of helping them outweigh the costs."
Dan
Batson is Professor Emeritus at the University of Kansas. His main research
interests are in prosocial emotion, motivation, and behavior. He has
conducted a number of experiments on empathy, on perspective taking, and on
various forms of prosocial motivation.
(Video
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"The term empathy is currently applied to more than a half-dozen
phenomena.
1. Knowing another persons internal state,
Including thoughts and feelings
2. Adopting the posture or matching the neural
responses of an observed other
3. Coming to feel as another person feels
4. Intuiting or projecting oneself into
another's situation
5. Imagining how another is thinking and
feeling
6. Imagining how one would think and
feel in the other's place
7. Feeling distress at witnessing
another person's suffering
8. Feeling for another person who is
suffering (empathic concern) An other-oriented emotional response
elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need.
Includes feeling sympathy, compassion, tenderness and the like (i.e.
feeling for the other, and not feeling as the other)"
ABSTRACT
"This book takes a hard-science look at the possibility that we humans have
the capacity to care for others for their sakes (altruism) rather than
simply for our own (egoism). The look is based not on armchair speculation,
dramatic cases, or after-the-fact interviews, but on an extensive series of
theory-testing laboratory experiments conducted over the past 35 years.
Part I
details the theory of altruistic motivation that has been the focus of this
experimental research. The theory centers on the empathy-altruism
hypothesis, which claims that other-oriented feelings of sympathy and
compassion for a person in need (empathic concern) produce motivation with
the ultimate goal of having that need removed. Antecedents and consequences
of empathy-induced altruistic motivation are specified, making the theory
empirically testable.
Part II
offers a comprehensive summary of the research designed to test the
empathy-altruism hypothesis, giving particular attention to recent
challenges. Overall, the research provides remarkably strong and consistent
support for this hypothesis, forcing a tentative conclusion that
empathy-induced altruism is within the human repertoire.
Part III
considers the theoretical and practical implications of this conclusion,
suggesting that empathy-induced altruism is a far more pervasive and
powerful force in human affairs than has been recognized. Failure to
appreciate its importance has handicapped attempts to understand why we
humans act as we do and wherein our happiness lies. This failure has also
handicapped efforts to promote better interpersonal relations and create a
more caring, humane society."
"Batson’s book is a summary of his impressive research career
investigating altruism and more specifically the claim that empathic concern
is an important motivator for altruistic behavior. Years ago he wrote
another book about the topic, The Altruism Question (Batson, 1991). In the
current book, Batson describes further developments in altruism research by
himself and others and reflects on what is not (yet) known. It is not a book
about evolutionary psychology per se but it does have implications for
altruism research from an evolutionary perspective. Furthermore, by using an
evolutionary perspective one could interpret some aspects of Batson’s
findings differently"
Dan Batson lays out the way the word empathy is
used.
In
the book Altruism in
Humans, in Chapter One, The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis he again talks
about the seven uses of the term empathy.
The term empathy is currently applied to more
than a half-dozen phenomena.
1. Knowing another persons internal state,
Including thoughts and feelings
2. Adopting the posture or matching the neural
responses of an observed other
3. Coming to feel as another person feels
4. Intuiting or projecting oneself into
another's situation
5. Imagining how another is thinking and
feeling
6. Imagining how one would think and
feel in the other's place
7. Feeling distress at witnessing
another person's suffering
8. Feeling for another person who is
suffering (empathic concern)
An other-oriented emotional response
elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need.
Includes feeling sympathy, compassion, tenderness and the like (i.e.
feeling for the other, and not feeling as the other)"
Wiki/Empathy-altruism
"Empathy-altruism is a form of
altruism based on feelings for others. The
social exchange theory basically states that altruism does not exist
unless benefits outweigh the costs.
C. Daniel Batson disagrees. He feels that people help out of genuine
concern for the well-being of the other person.
[1].
The key ingredient to helping is
empathy.
According to his 'empathy-altruism hypothesis', if
you feel empathy towards another person you will help them, regardless
of what you can gain from it (1991). Relieving their suffering becomes
the most important thing. When you do not feel empathy, the social
exchange theory takes control."
"We humans spend a remarkable amount of time, money, and
energy to benefit others, including family, friends, and strangers. Why
do we do it? Do we ever care about others for their sakes and not simply
for our own? Is our ultimate goal always and exclusively self-benefit,
or are we capable of caring about another person’s welfare as an
ultimate goal? These questions are asking about the existence of
altruistic motivation in humans....."
Edwin: I was wondering how you see your work connecting with Obama’s
call for more empathy?
Dan
Batson: "Edwin,
many thanks for sharing your great collection of video clips and quotes
from Obama speeches in which he emphasizes the importance of empathy and
speaks of the “empathy deficit” in the U.S.! The term empathy as Obama
uses it in the quotes almost always seems to refer to imagining how one
would think or feel in another’s place—what I have called an
imagine-self perspective. As I said in response to Frans, this form of
perspective taking can serve as a stepping stone to provide insight into
the situation of another person (especially if that person’s situation
is relatively foreign to us) and to how he or she is affected by that
situation—the sensitive understanding that I have called an
imagine-other perspective. This sensitive understanding can, in turn,
lead to the empathic concern (synonymous, I believe, to what Obama calls
compassion) that has been found to produce altruistic motivation. I
think it is this sequence that Obama has in mind in his references to
empathy and our empathy deficit.
But this sequence is not the only possibility when we use our “ability
to see the world through somebody else’s eyes, and to stand in somebody
else’s shoes” (i.e., use our ability to adopt an imagine-self
perspective). Let me mention two other possibilities. First, it is
possible to empathize in this sense in a competitive situation in order
to anticipate your opponent’s moves and thwart his or her interests, as
a skilled chess player or negotiator does. Adam Galinsky and Nick Epley
have each done interesting and valuable research on the role of this
kind of perspective taking in bargaining and negotiation situations.
Second, it is possible to imagine yourself in others’ shoes to compare
and contrast your reaction to their’s. If you judge them to be reacting
less appropriately than you think you would—or did—then this form of
perspective taking may provide the basis for censure, condemnation, and
rejection. I do not think Obama had either of these last two sequences
in mind. However, their existence highlights the complexities of
perspective taking and the fact that it is a skill that can be used
either to bring us into alignment with the interests of others or to
drive us farther apart."
