Positive Psychology

We humans have no doubt inherited key aspects of our parental instinct from ancestors we share with other mammalian species (Preston, 2013). But in humans this instinct seems less automatic and more flexible. Human parental nurturance goes well beyond nursing, providing other kinds of food, protecting, and keeping the young close – activities that characterize parental care in most mammalian species. It includes inferences about and anticipation of the desires and feelings of the child (“Is that a hungry cry or a wet cry?” “She won’t like the fireworks; they’ll be too loud.”). It also includes goal‐directed motives and appraisal‐based emotions (Scherer, 1984). Crucially, it seems to include (a) other‐oriented feelings of empathic concern for the child and (b) empathy‐induced altruistic motivation to protect and increase the child’s welfare.

Parental care based on empathic concern didn’t supplant the more primitive cue‐based responses of our ancient ancestors. Instead, it supplemented these responses by increasing the flexibility with which they are employed (see Bell, 2001; Damasio, 2002; MacLean, 1990; Sober, 1991; Sober & Wilson, 1998; S. E. Taylor, 2002; Zahn‐Waxler & Radke‐Yarrow, 1990). This flexibility permits anticipation and prevention of needs – even evolutionarily quite novel ones such as the need to avoid sticking a pin in an electrical outlet.

Importantly, the empathy‐altruism research shows that we humans don’t experience empathy‐induced altruistic motivation only in response to the needs of our own children. As long as there’s no preexisting antipathy, we can feel empathy for a wide range of others in need, including nonhumans (Batson, Lishner, Cook, & Sawyer, 2005; Shelton & Rogers, 1981). Speculating, let me suggest that this breadth of human empathy‐induced altruism may reflect cognitive generalization whereby we “adopt” cared‐for others as progeny, producing empathic concern and altruistic motivation when they are in need (Batson, 2011; Hoffman, 1981).

To the extent that the human nurturant impulse relies on appraisal‐based other‐oriented emotions such as empathic concern, it should be relatively easy to generalize. And two specific factors may have facilitated the emergence of such generalization: (a) human cognitive capacity, including the capacity for symbolic thought and analogic reasoning; and (b) lack of evolutionary advantage for limiting empathic concern and parental nurturance to offspring in early human hunter‐gatherer bands. In these bands, not only were those in need often one’s children or close kin, but survival of one’s genes was tightly tied to the welfare even of those who weren’t close kin (Hrdy, 2009; Kelly, 1995; Sober & Wilson, 1998). In contemporary society, the prospect of generalization of parental nurturance appears more plausible when you think of the emotional sensitivity and tender care that can be provided by nannies, workers in day‐care centers, adoptive parents, and pet owners.

If the roots of human altruism lie in generalized parental nurturance, then altruism is woven tightly into our nature and into the fabric of everyday life. Empathy‐induced altruism isn’t exceptional or unnatural, but a central feature of the human condition. Rather than looking for such altruism only in acts of extreme self‐sacrifice, it should be manifest in our everyday experience. The empathy‐altruism research provides evidence that it is.

Now that we have the “what” of the empathy‐altruism hypothesis before us, we can turn to why it’s important – the implications. Research shows that empathy‐induced altruism isn’t an unalloyed good. It offers important benefits but also has important liabilities, and we need to be aware of both. Let me highlight some of the key benefits and liabilities. (For more extensive discussion and review of relevant research, see Batson, 2011, 2018.)

More, more sensitive, and less fickle help . Perhaps the least surprising benefit is that feeling empathic concern leads us to help the target(s) of empathy more. Even before the empathy‐altruism hypothesis was tested, there was evidence that empathic concern can increase the likelihood of helping (e.g., Coke, Batson, & McDavis, 1978; Krebs, 1975). Now, knowing that empathic concern produces altruistic motivation, we have reason to believe it can improve the quality of help as well – producing help that is more sensitive to the needs of the person for whom empathy is felt.

Egoistic goals such as gaining rewards and avoiding punishments can often be reached even if our help doesn’t alleviate the needy individual’s suffering. For these goals, it’s the thought that counts. But for empathy‐induced altruism, the other’s welfare counts; our focus is on the other’s need and its relief. Experimental evidence supports this reasoning. Unlike those feeling little empathy, individuals induced to feel empathic concern tend to feel good after helping only if the other’s need is relieved (Batson et al., 1988; Batson & Weeks, 1996). And our concern for the other’s welfare includes sensitivity to future needs. Sibicky, Schroeder, and Dovidio (1995) provided experimental evidence that empathic concern reduced helping when the help, although meeting an immediate need, would be detrimental in the long term (e.g., think of parents who refuse to give their beloved child unhealthy treats).

In addition to producing more sensitive help, empathy‐induced altruistic motivation is also likely to be less fickle than egoistic motives for helping. Research indicates that individuals experiencing relatively low empathy – and so a predominance of egoistic over altruistic motivation – are far less likely to help when either (a) they can easily escape exposure to the other’s need without helping or (b) they can easily justify to themselves and others a failure to help (Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson et al., 1988; Toi & Batson, 1982). The practical implications of these findings are disturbing because easy escape and ready justification for not helping are common characteristics of many helping situations. Amid the blooming, buzzing confusion of everyday life, we can almost always find a way to direct attention elsewhere or to convince ourselves that inaction is justified. Given this, the practical potential of empathy‐induced altruistic motivation looks promising indeed. In the research just cited, individuals experiencing relatively high empathy showed no noticeable decrease in readiness to help under conditions of easy escape, high justification, or both.

Less aggression . A second benefit is inhibition of aggression. To the degree that feeling empathic concern for a person in need produces altruistic motivation to maintain or increase their welfare, it should inhibit any inclination to aggress against or harm that person. This inhibitory effect was impressively demonstrated by Harmon‐Jones, Vaughn‐Scott, Mohr, Sigelman, and Harmon‐Jones (2004). They assessed the effect of empathy on anger‐related left‐frontal cortical electroencephalographic (EEG) activity following an insult. As predicted based on the empathy‐altruism hypothesis, relative left‐frontal cortical EEG activity, which is typically increased by insult and which promotes aggression – and which increased in a low‐empathy condition – was inhibited in their high‐empathy condition.

Note that empathic feelings shouldn’t inhibit all aggressive impulses, only those directed toward the target of empathy. Indeed, it’s easy to imagine empathy‐induced anger and aggression, in which empathy for person A leads to increased anger and aggression toward person B if B is perceived to be a threat to A’s welfare (see Buffone & Poulin, 2014; Hoffman, 2000; Vitaglione & Barnett, 2003).