476 Altruism and Prosocial Behavior
egoism must be replaced by a more complex view of motiva-
tion that allows for altruism as well as egoism. Such a shift in
our view of motivation requires, in turn, a revision of our
underlying assumptions about human nature and human
potential. It implies that we humans may be more social
than we have thought—that other people can be more to us
than sources of information, stimulation, and reward as we each
seek our own welfare. To some degree and under some circum-
stances, we can care about their welfare as an end in itself.
The evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis also
forces us to face the question of why empathic feelings exist.
What evolutionary function do they serve? Admittedly spec-
ulative, the most plausible answer relates empathic feelings
to parenting among higher mammals, in which offspring
live for some time in a very vulnerable state (de Waal, 1996;
Hoffman, 1981; McDougall, 1908; Zahn-Waxler & Radke-
Yarrow, 1990). Were parents not intensely interested in the
welfare of their progeny, these species would quickly die out.
Empathic feelings for offspring, and the resulting altruistic
motivation, may promote one’s reproductive potential not by
increasing the number of offspring but by increasing the
chance of their survival.
Clearly, however, empathic feelings extend well beyond
one’s own children. People can feel empathy for a wide range
of individuals (including nonhumans) as long as there is no
preexisting antipathy (Batson, 1991; Krebs, 1975; Shelton &
Rogers, 1981). From an evolutionary perspective, this exten-
sion may be attributed to cognitive generalization whereby
one “adopts” others, making it possible to evoke the primi-
tive and fundamental impulse to care for progeny when these
adopted others are in need (Batson, 1987; MacLean, 1973).
Such cognitive generalization may be possible because of
(a) human cognitive capacity, including symbolic thought,
and (b) the lack of evolutionary advantage for sharp discrim-
ination of empathic feelings in the small hunter-gatherer
bands of early humans. In these bands, those in need were
often one’s children or close kin, and one’s own welfare was
tightly tied to the welfare even of those who were not close
kin (Hoffman, 1981).
The empathy-altruism hypothesis also may have wide-
ranging practical implications. Given the power of empathic
feelings to evoke altruistic motivation, people may some-
times suppress or avoid these feelings. Loss of the capacity
to feel empathy for clients may be a factor, possibly a central
one, in the experience of burnout among case workers in the
helping professions (Maslach, 1982). Aware of the extreme
effort involved in helping or the impossibility of helping
effectively, these case workers—as well as nurses caring for
terminal patients, and even pedestrians confronted by the
homeless—may try to avoid feeling empathy in order to
avoid the resulting altruistic motivation (Shaw, Batson, &
Todd, 1994; Stotland, Mathews, Sherman, Hansson, &
Richardson, 1978). There seems to be, then, egoistic motiva-
tion to avoid altruistic motivation.
More positively, experiments have tested the possibility that
empathy-induced altruism can be used to improve attitudes
toward stigmatized out-groups. Thus far, results look quite
encouraging. Inducing empathy has improved racial attitudes,
as well as attitudes toward people with AIDS, the homeless,
and even convicted murderers (Batson, Polycarpou, et al.,
1997; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Johnson, 1999). Empathy-induced
altruism has also been found to increase cooperation in a com-
petitive situation (aprisoner’s dilemma), even when one knows
that the person for whom one feels empathy has acted compet-
itively (Batson & Ahmad, 2001; Batson & Moran, 1999).Other Possible Sources of Altruistic MotivationMight there be sources of altruistic motivation other than
empathic emotion? Several have been proposed, including
an altruistic personality (Oliner & Oliner, 1988), principled
moral reasoning (Kohlberg, 1976), and internalized pro-
social values (Staub, 1974). There is some evidence that
each of these potential sources is associated with increased
prosocial motivation, but as yet, it is not clear whether this
motivation is altruistic. It may instead be an instrumental
means to the egoistic ultimate goals of (a) maintaining one’s
positive self-concept or (b) avoiding guilt (Batson, 1991;
Batson, Bolen, Cross, & Neuringer-Benefiel, 1986; Carlo
et al., 1991; Eisenberg et al., 1989). More and better research
exploring these possibilities is needed.Beyond the Egoism-Altruism Debate:
Other Prosocial MotivesThinking more broadly, beyond the egoism-altruism debate
that has been the focus of attention and contention for the
past two decades, might there be other forms of prosocial
motivation—forms in which the ultimate goal is neither to
benefit oneself nor to benefit another individual? Two possi-
bilities seem especially worthy of consideration: collectivism
and principlism.Collectivism: Benefiting a GroupCollectivism involves motivation to benefit a particular group
as a whole. The ultimate goal is not to increase one’s own wel-
fare or the welfare of the specific others who are benefited; the
ultimate goal is to increase the welfare of the group. Robyn
Dawes and his colleagues put it succinctly: “Not me or thee
but we” (Dawes, van de Kragt, & Orbell, 1988). They also
suggested that collectivist prosocial motivation is a product of