2002/11/01 by Jon K. Maner, Carol Luce, Steven L. Neuberg +3 · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Psychology of Social Influence #Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
paper · doi:10.1177/014616702237586
openalex publication_date 2002/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
To investigate the existence of true altruism, the authors assessed the link between empathic concern and helping by (a) employing an experimental perspective-taking paradigm used previously to demonstrate empathy-associated helping and (b) assessing the empathy-helping relationship while controlling for a range of relevant, well-measured nonaltruistic motivations. Consistent with previous research, the authors found a significant zero-order relationship between helping and empathic concern, the purported motivator of true altruism. This empathy-helping relationship disappeared, however, when nonaltruistic motivators (oneness and negative affect) were taken into account: Only the nonaltruistic factors of oneness (merged identity with the victim) and negative affect mediated helping, whereas empathic concern did not. Evidence for true altruism remains elusive.