Batson’s Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

A summary of Batson's Empathy-altruism Hypothesis, which explains prosocial behavior.

The psychologist Charles Daniel Batson, like other authors in the field of psychology, tries to explain altruistic motivation on the basis of empathic feeling.

In order to relate empathy with helping behavior, this researcher proposes different stages such as the perception of the needy, the assessment of their welfare, the adoption of perspective and finally, in order to decide to help, the hedonic calculation, which refers to the balance between cost and benefits.

In this article we explain what Batson proposes in his hypothesis of empathy-altruism and what is the relationship between these two concepts.

What is Batson's Empathy-altruism Hypothesis?

Daniel Batson's Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis contemplates that feeling empathy for someone will cause us to engage in altruistic behavior towards that person.. To better understand this hypothesis, we must first explain what it consists of and how each term that composes it is defined.

The first concept we find is that of empathy, which is understood as the ability to understand the emotions of others and to be able to put ourselves in their place. Not only is it enough to understand how others are feeling, but it is also necessary to assess the situation taking into account the other person's perspective and situation, feeling the other person's emotions as our own..

For example, given the situation of a friend who has been cooking all afternoon to prepare dinner for us and it burns, acting empathetically would be to understand and let him know that we understand that he is frustrated by the situation; on the other hand, if we act as if it does not matter, downplaying its importance, we are not putting ourselves in his place and we are not being empathetic.

In reference to altruism, this phenomenon consists of acting with the purpose of seeking the good of others, i.e., to benefit them.that is to say, to benefit him and not to seek my own benefit exclusively. The opposite behavior to altruism would be selfishness, where one acts with the purpose of pleasing oneself.

For example, an altruistic behavior would consist of helping a friend with the move without expecting anything in return, without the intention that he will return the favor at some point, just for the simple fact of helping him.

The stages of prosocial behavior

Batson attempts to explain prosocial, altruistic behavior through the approach of six stagesThe six stages are: perception of the needy, assessment of their welfare, perspective adoption, empathy and altruistic motivation, hedonic calculation and helping behavior. All of them are important for the subject's decision to help.

To better understand how empathy arises we must know the concepts that influence it. The perception of need is the balance we make between the current state of the subject we want to help and the ideal state of well-being; the valuation of his/her well-being is related to the affective bond we have with the subject and to what degree we are concerned about him/her; and the adoption of perspective refers to being able to put ourselves in the other person's place.

The author is of the opinion that the first two, perception of need and valuation of their well-being, are the starting point for the emergence of empathic feeling.both being equally important. Only the perception of the other's needs does not imply that perspective adoption occurs, but the valuation of the other's well-being does have an influence, since it is easier to put ourselves in the subject's place.

As we have seen, the hypothesis proposes a relationship between empathy and altruistic behavior. The first term, empathy, is defined as a feeling that predisposes to the appearance of a motivation, which in this case is altruistic behavior, also known as prosocial, with the main purpose of improving the well-being of the person concerned.

But Batson still defines one more step for helping behavior to occur; and that is that we can have an altruistic motivation but not perform the helping behavior.. This will depend on the hedonic calculation, which is made taking into account the positive and negative consequences of acting. In this way, we will only help if we see that it is possible to do so, it is effective and the cost-benefit balance outweighs the latter.

• You may be interested in "Hedonic adaptation: how do we modulate our search for well-being?"

Opposition to the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

Thus, Daniel Batson believes that empathy generates in the individual a motivation to act altruistically. But not everyone agrees with this statement, since there are theories and authors who believe that altruistic behavior as such does not exist, that it would be in any case an ideal, ensuring that people always act looking for their own benefit and if the sum of the cost-reward is positive, that is, if helping the other is more positive than negative for us.

Those who oppose this hypothesis claim that whenever we act in favor of another person we do so with a double intentionWe only act if there is no cost to us and it benefits us or makes us feel better. Thus, it would be difficult to identify a behavior that is fully altruistic, since to a greater or lesser extent it will always end up contributing something good to us, even if it is just feeling good for having helped.

Another noteworthy point: the hypothesis is designed with the aim of helping only one person, but if we apply it to reality, the number of subjects that may require help is very high, the number of subjects that may require help increases. Therefore, it would be interesting to study how the appearance of other victims who need our help affects our motivational process of prosocial behavior. Similarly, there is another variable to consider: the limitation of our helping behavior. Although there are different victims, our behavior cannot cover all of them, and we have to decide how to act.

Despite the opposition it has received, the empathy-altruism hypothesis Batson maintains and has proven through research and studies, more than 35 experiments, that show that empathy and altruism are indeed related and that it is not true that people always act expecting something in return when we support the other person..

In this path, it should be noted that Batson was not the only one who planted the influence of empathy for the realization of altruistic behavior; there are other well-known authors such as the naturist Charles Darwin or the philosopher David Hume who affirm that empathy is basic for the subject to act in a prosocial way.

The benefit of the other is a benefit for us

Likewise, it is difficult to evaluate if a behavior is based on genuine altruism, since it will be difficult to know with certainty what the final intention was or what he was seeking to feel by engaging in such behavior.. But what we have observed, and what is most likely to happen, is that there is a feedback between making others feel good and feeling good ourselves.

If we help another individual with the intention of making him feel better, i.e. altruistically, by seeing his condition improve, that will also make us feel good ourselves if we are empathic. Feeling better is not our main objective, but it is a fact that appears when we see the other person's improvement..

Taking into account what has been said so far, altruistic behavior can be linked to self-benefit even if this is not its ultimate purpose. Acting with the intention of helping others will also indirectly benefit us, and this will improve our self-concept, our self-esteem, we will feel better about ourselves, thus increasing the likelihood that we will act altruistically again. Acting altruistically benefits everyone.

On the other hand, if the intention of my behavior towards the other person is to favor me (in other words, we act in a selfish way having as main objective our own benefit), this ends up generating bad relationships and anger, since the other person realizes our intentions, or when we do not receive what we expect, a negative reaction occurs, which will mean breaking the relationship with that person.

In this way, if we want to maintain good relationships and social ties, the best way to act is altruistic.It is the one that allows connections to continue and remain, without being broken by self-interest or by a claim to return a favor. Acting without expecting anything in return makes us free, gives us peace of mind and makes us happier if we receive a good deed in return, because it is not what we expected.