Altruism is defined by Batson as a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.
The social exchange theory states that altruism does not exist unless benefits to the helper outweigh the costs. C. Daniel Batson holds that people help others in need out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The key ingredient to helping is “empathic concern”.
Is empathic emotion a source of altruistic motivation Batson et al 1981?
It has been suggested that empathy leads to altruistic rather than egoistic mo- tivation to help. … Results of each experiment followed the former pattern when empathy was high and the latter pattern when empathy was low, supporting the hypothesis that empathy leads to altruistic rather than egoistic motivation to help.
