Does True Altruism Exist?

[Keny]

ISSUE 17. Does True Altruism Exist?

YES: C. DANIEL BATSON, BRUCE D. DUNCAN, PAULA ACKERMAN, TERESE BUCKLEY AND KIMBERLY BIRCH, FROM “IS EMPATHIC EMOTION A SOURCE OF ALTRUISTIC MOTIVATION?” JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 40, 1981)

NO: ROBERT B. CIALDINI, MARK SCHALLER, DONALD HOULIHAN, KEVIN ARPS, JIM FULTZ, AND ARTHUR L. BEAMAN, FROM “EMPATHY-BASED HELPING: IS IT SELFLESSLY OR SELFISHLY MOTIVATED?” JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 52, 1987)

Social psychologist C. Daniel Batson and his colleagues believe that people sometimes help for purely altruistic reasons. He proposes that empathy is the key factor responsible for altruism and describes the results of an experiment that supports his position. Social psychologist Robert Cialdini and his colleagues are not convinced that empathy alone can motivate helping. Instead they propose that people often help others in order to make themselves feel better.