Reinterpreting the Empathy – Altruism Relationship: When One Into One Equals Oneness

Important features of the self-concept can be located outside f he individual nd inside close or related others. The authors use this insight to reinterpret data previously said to support the empathy-altruism model of helping, which asserts thatempathic concern for another results in selflessness and true altruism. That is, hey argue that he conditions that lead toempathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but is al o directed toward the self. In 3 studies, the impact of empathic concern on willingness to help was eliminated when oneness--a measure of perceived self-other overlap--was considered. Path analyses revealed further that empathic concern increased helping only through its relation to perceived oneness, thereby throwing the empathy-altruism model into question. The authors uggest that empathic concern affects helping primarily as an emotional signal of oneness. Although social psychologists regularly inquire into the form and intent of behavior, arely do they address questions designed to reflect directly on the basic nature of humanity. That has not been the case, however, in one notable research domain: the study of true altruism. Not content o leave the issue to the philosophers who have pondered it through the ages without clear resolution (Bentham, 1789/1879; Comte, 1851/1875; Hume, 1740/1896; Nagel, 1970), various social psychologists have examined the possibility that wholly altruistic motivation falls within the range of human functioning (e.g., Campbell