On interpretation of the behavioral economics findings, I follow the separate-process option Felix outlines. I agree with Felix that empathy-induced altruistic motivation is likely to play little role in most behavioral economics experiments, for the reasons he outlines. Instead, because of the emphasis on transparency and full disclosure, such experiments are likely to evoke strong normative and self-presentational concerns, producing egoistic motivation associated with gaining social and self-rewards and avoiding social and self-punishment. Behavioral economists call such motives altruistic if they lead participants to act contrary to material self-interest. I consider such motives subtle forms of egoism.

Turning to children and nonhuman primates, I would be delighted to have more careful research on the nature of the motivation to help in children and nonhuman primates. Because developmental psychologists and primatologists usually adopt behavioral rather than motivational definitions of altruism, equating need-directed helping (“targeted helping”) with altruism, their research rarely addresses the question of the goal-directed motives behind such helping. Felix, your work with Michael Tomasello is probably the best I know (e.g., Warneken, Hare, Melis, Hanus, & Tomasello, 2007). Still, I do not think it clearly and systematically addresses the full range of possible egoistic alternatives. I would love to see (even to collaborate on) some research that systematically goes after the motivational alternatives in nonhuman primate sharing, helping, consoling, etc.

Finally, as you quite rightly point out, much of the helping by children and nonhuman primates is likely not empathy based. That raises two possibilities. First, the helping is not altruistically motivated. Second, the helping is altruistically motivated but empathic concern is not the source of the altruism. Clearly, much helping is not altruistically motivated, so the first possibility is a very plausible alternative that must always be considered. Whether there are sources of altruistic motivation other than empathic concern is, at this point, less clear, but that possibility is certainly worth exploring. The empathy-altruism hypothesis makes no claim about being the only source of altruistic motivation.

Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Spontaneous altruism by chimpanzees and young children. PLoS Biology, 5, e184.

So, is it possible to use empathy-induced altruism to address the problem of reconciliation in the aftermath of war or genocide? I think there is some encouraging evidence that it can at least play a role. For example, consider peace workshops and peace camps, which are typically designed for the young people (teenagers) of warring factions. Participants from the two sides of the conflict live together, spend free time together, exchange views in dialogue sessions under the direction of trained leaders, take part in structured exercises, and share cultural experiences. These activities provide personalizing contact, awareness of out-group needs, and cooperative experiences. They encourage cross-group friendships, and seem to induce imagine-other perspective taking and empathic concern for out-group members. One well-known example is the workshop program for Jewish and Arab youths at Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam (the Hebrew and Arabic names for the same community) in Israel (Bargal & Bar, 1992). Less well-known, but quite interesting because of a one-year follow-up assessment of attitudes and behavior toward the out-group, was a 4-day peace workshop in Sri Lanka that brought together Sinhalese (majority) and Tamil (minority) youth (Malhotra & Liyanage, 2005). After one year, participants in this workshop expressed more understanding of and empathic concern for the members of the other group than did either of two comparison groups—(a) youth who were nominated for the workshop but did not take part due to budget cuts and (b) youth from demographically similar schools not involved in nominating students. Compared to these non-participants, workshop participants also voluntarily donated a larger portion of the money they received for completing the follow-up questionnaire packet to help poor children of the other group.

An intriguing variation on the peace workshop model is the storytelling method used in a year-long class with Jewish and Palestinian students at Ben Gurion University in 2000-2001 (Bar-On & Kassem, 2004). Bar-On had previously used this method in Germany to facilitate dialogue between children of survivors of the Holocaust and children of perpetrators. The method involved having students in the class audiotape interviews in which family members from their parents’ or grandparents’ generation told their life story. These interviews were then played for the entire class and served as a springboard to reflection and discussion under the guidance of a Jewish and a Palestinian facilitator. Such a method seems to capitalize on much the same process Jodi pointed to in the Bosnian, Serb, and Croatian mothers: humanizing the enemy and evoking tender, nurturant feelings for common suffering.

Finally, let me mention an ambitious year-long field experiment in Rwanda to test the effect of a radio soap opera designed to promote reconciliation between Tutsi and Hutu (Paluck, 2009). This experiment tapped the empathy-inducing capacity of fiction I mentioned earlier in my response to Martha. The story-line of the soap opera featured the struggles of a young cross-group couple who pursue their love in the face of community disapproval and start a youth coalition for peace and cooperation. The young couple’s struggles seemed to produce both perspective taking and empathic concern for both the man and woman. Follow-up measures indicated that these effects generalized, producing increased perspective taking and feelings of concern for a range of people in Rwandan society, including members of the out-group.

Bargal, D., & Bar, H. (1992). A Lewinian approach to intergroup workshops for Arab-Palestinian and Jewish youth. Journal of Social Issues, 48, 139-154.
Bar-On, D., & Kassem, F. (2004). Storytelling as a way to work through intractable conflicts: The German-Jewish experience and its relevance to the Palestinian-Israeli context. Journal of Social Issues, 60, 289-306.
Malhotra, D., & Liyanage, S. (2005). Long-term effects of peace workshops in protracted conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49, 908-924.
Paluck, E. L. (2009). Reducing intergroup prejudice and conflict using the media: A field experiment in Rwanda. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 574-587.

For example, how does Batson’s approach account for the abundant findings from behavioral economics that people will forego a selfish advantage—even in experimental situations such as the dictator game in experimenters have attempted to reduce the influence of cues that typically induce empathy as much as possible. That is, these types of experimental tests typically minimize direct interaction, occur under conditions of anonymity, and have an absence of distress-cues. One possibility is that human behavior in these contexts are due to generalizations from situations typically inducing empathic concern or are these behaviors due to a separate process (such as what is referred to in the post as “principlism”)?

More generally, it seems to me that experiments from both social psychology and behavioral economics make a strong case that our behaviors cannot be easily explained by selfish motives alone. In recent years, the study of altruism has been enriched by new experimental methods that enable us to not only study adults, but also children’s development of altruistic behaviors and various nonhuman primates (Warneken & Tomasello, 2009). The new challenge appears to be to account for the variety of these altruistic behaviors that humans (and in some circumstances their evolutionary relatives, such as chimpanzees) engage in—even in cases where empathic responses as typically defined may play no role in motivating the altruistic behaviors observed. Furthermore, a major challenge will be to assess the extent to which behaviors such as sharing resources or alleviating another person’s emotional distress are components of a common psychological mechanism that comes into play across very different aspects of human social interactions, or separate psychological mechanisms that have evolved for different functions.

Warneken F Tomasello M. Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees. Trends in cognitive sciences. 2009 Sep;13(9):397-402.

The literature on social reconciliation after war is largely aspirational, and emphasizes an attitude of forgiveness that sounds like Batson’s empathic concern. In the few actual examples, it seems that this forgiveness is inspired by seeing that the perpetrator has been made vulnerable and weak. For example, Pumla Gobodo-Maidikizela writes about two South African women whose husbands were murdered by Eugene de Kock. Visiting him in prison in South Africa, they see de Kock chained and despairing. They are overwhelmed by protective, tender feelings (“I would like to hold him by the hand”), and this moves them to trust his apology as genuine. Yet perhaps they ought to have been more skeptical, and perhaps feeling empathic concern interfered with their developing appropriate skepticism.

On the other hand, Batson’s empathic concern seems to play a crucial role in genuine social reconciliation when people truly share commitments of nurturance. Parents, especially mothers, who have lost children in wars, have developed alliances with former enemies to locate their children’s bodies. For example, Bosnian, Serb and Croatian mothers have worked together for over a decade to locate and build proper memorials for all of their sons. Interview studies suggest that some of these women eventually develop a different, less tender form of empathy, one defined more by engaged curiosity about each other’s distinct experiences.

Batson’s work prompts the need for inquiry into whether feelings of parental nurturance for each other’s lost children can be the initial motivation for helping people work together in the aftermath of war. The bonds formed in working together may then lead to the development of other forms of empathic regard that help stabilize reconciliation over time, thus potentially decreasing the risk of future conflicts.

———————————————————
Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2002) Remorse, Forgiveness and Rehumanization: Stories from South Africa, 42. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 7 (2002).
Ibid
Halpern, J. and Weinstein, H. (2004) Rehumanizing the Other: Empathy and Social Reconciliation, Human Rights Quarterly. August 26 (3) (2004): 561-583.
Halpern, J. (2001) From Detached Concern to Empathy: Humanizing Medical Practice, Oxford University Press.

First, it seems to me that a lot of literature and drama is written with the intent of trying to get the reader to take the perspective of and care for a member of some out-group. Not all, of course, but a lot. Colleagues and I got interested in this possibility a few years ago and wondered whether we could, by asking people to imagine the situations of others, induce empathic concern for members of stigmatized out-groups and, thereby, improve attitudes toward the group as a whole. We found that this could be done; indeed, it was not particularly difficult. We were able to induce increased empathic concern for a young woman with AIDS and for a homeless man, and this empathic concern, in turn, led to more positive attitudes toward people with AIDS and the homeless in general. Encouraged by that, we decided to up the stakes and try to induce empathy for a convicted murderer serving life without parole. The empathy we got was substantially lower than we got for the young woman with AIDS or the homeless man, but we found a significant increase. And this empathy led to more positive attitudes toward convicted murderers in general. Interestingly, the more positive attitudes did not appear in the immediate lab situation. But several weeks later, a phone survey that had no apparent connection to our experiment revealed more positive attitudes toward convicted murderers among those induced to feel empathy for the murderer in the lab. In a follow-up study we found that empathic concern induced in this way for a heroin addict and dealer led to both to more positive attitudes and more willingness to allocate funds to help other drug addicts. So, I think there are some possibilities in making more use of this kind of literature and drama in educational settings.

Second, cooperative learning programs such as Elliot Aronson’s Jigsaw Classroom show promise of increasing perspective taking and compassion across racial and ethnic lines. In such a classroom, students spend part of their school day in racially/ethnically mixed groups (ideally, five to six students per group). Each group is given a learning task, and each member of the group has one, but only one, part of the information the group needs to complete the task. As a result, each person in the group must rely on the contribution of every other person to succeed. After about 8 weeks the groups are dissolved, new groups are formed, and each student must learn to work effectively with 4 or 5 more students in a new racially/ethnically mixed group. After another 8 weeks, new groups are formed again, and so on. There is evidence that increased inter-group liking and friendship, and increased perspective-taking skill, can result.

Third, especially interesting in light of the possibility that generalized parental nurturance may provide the genetic substrate for empathy-induced altruism is the Roots of Empathy project developed in Canada by Mary Gordon. The core of the program is visits to a primary-school classroom (kindergarten through Grade Eight) monthly throughout the school year by a mother (or sometimes a father—or both) and infant from the community. Pupils ring a green blanket on which the parent places the infant. They observe the infant and the parent-infant interaction, interact with the baby themselves, and ask the parent questions about what the infant has learned since the last visit. The idea is that the relationship between the parent and child serves as a template for positive, empathic human relationships and that observing the baby’s development and the parent-infant interaction will encourage perspective taking and valuing of the infant’s welfare. A trained Roots of Empathy instructor guides the family visits and meets with the class prior to and after each visit, providing basic information about infant development, encouraging pupils to imagine what the infant is thinking and feeling, and extending this perspective taking to the pupils themselves and to peers. When a Roots of Empathy classroom is racially or ethnically diverse, explicit attention is given to bringing in parents and infants from the different groups represented in the class in order to provide a basis for inter-group perspective taking and affection.

Finally, I would suggest that we think about orchestrating pro-social motives. Different pro-social motives have different potential strengths and limitations. An empathy-induced altruistic motive can be quite powerful, but it is limited in scope. It tends to be bounded to those for whom you particularly care. On the other hand, moral motivation is broad in scope. Most moral principles are universal and impartial. Yet moral motivation is, at least in the research my colleagues and I have done, disturbingly weak. It doesn’t have a strong emotional base (in spite of some current claims to the contrary). Perhaps because it lacks an emotional base, moral motivation seems extremely vulnerable to rationalization. Recognizing this reciprocal pattern of strength and weakness for empathy-induced altruism and moral motivation, suggests the possibility of trying to orchestrate these two distinct pro-social motives. If, for example, we can evoke a compassionate response to the victims of injustice then we may be able to capitalize on the strengths of both altruism and moral motivation. Jonathan Kozol’s writing seems designed to do precisely this, in spite of the fact that he has denied it. His denial not withstanding, I believe he orchestrates pro-social motives admirably. I think we can—and should—do more along these lines.

My own position on the issue of how we get to the place of grasping that others have values, intentions, goals, and feelings relies more heavily on the work of Michael Tomasello than on mirror neurons. Along with a seemingly innate capacity and tendency to imitate or mimic, human (and other primate) infants very early on seem to differentiate animate objects from inanimate objects—those that move themselves from those that do not. Infants also soon pick up patterns in the activity of animate objects, developing expectations. The next step is to recognize that the behavior of others is goal directed, that if one attempt to reach a goal fails another will be tried. What species other than humans take this step is, I think, still a matter of controversy, but it clearly is within the normal human repertoire. Regarding mirror neurons, it is my understanding that it is now recognized that these neurons selectively fire when observing goal-directed behavior, not purposeless movement. This leads me to think that the mirroring process is not as automatic and bottom-up as was originally claimed. Instead, it may be a component in a more top-down process of understanding what the other is doing. My analysis here is admittedly speculative. I hope we shall learn more about exactly how all this works in the next few years. It is an active area of research.

Your question about whether altruistic motivation should be as strictly distinguished from moral motivation as I have suggested is both key and challenging. As you point out, Adam Smith’s analysis of moral judgment has us operating in the role of an impartial spectator who sympathizes (or not) with the motives of an actor and with the reactions of those affected by the action, leading to sentiments of approbation or disapprobation. How does that analysis relate to what I have suggested about the independence of altruistic and moral motives? First, I think it is important to recognize that Smith’s sympathy is not the same as my empathic concern. His sympathy seems closer to emotional resonance. I think he might instead use the terms pity or compassion for what I am calling empathic concern. (Please correct me if I am wrong here; you have a far better handle on Smith than I.) Second, the goal of Smith’s impartial spectator is moral judgment, determination of whether an action is morally right or wrong. My focus is instead on the motivation for action, whether one’s ultimate goal is to increase the welfare of another for whom empathy is felt (altruistic motivation) or to uphold some moral standard, principle, or value (moral motivation). I might arrive at my judgment of what is moral in a given situation by the process Smith describes, and this judgment might then feed into my motivation (presumably, in this case my judgment would be about what it is moral for me to do). If acting in accord with this judgment is an ultimate goal, I am morally motivated. Still, I would suggest that this motive is conceptually and empirically distinct from a motive with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare—an altruistic motive. Indeed, I would suggest this even if in a given situation the two motives lead to exactly the same behavior.

Finally, let me add that to what degree people actually follow Smith’s strategy for making moral judgments is an empirical question—a descriptive rather than a normative question. It is a question on which I wish we had far more data than we do (or at least than I know about).

There is, however, another level of complexity here. If, as I have suggested, intrinsic valuing of the other’s welfare is an antecedent of empathic concern, then one might say that at least potential altruistic motivation precedes the experience of empathic concern. Kurt Lewin, whose general field-theory model I employ, suggests that values or valued states have the status of power fields in that they have the capacity to induce force fields (goals) and goal-directed forces (goal-directed motives). I have inserted emotion into Lewin’s model as a source of (a) information about where we stand in relation to valued states and (b) amplification of goal-directed motives. But without the valued states—potential motivation—there would, presumably, be no empathic concern.

I agree with Peter that empathic concern felt in response to a need of which the target is unaware creates serious problems for any model that claims that emotional resonance lies at the core of all empathic/sympathetic emotion. Insofar as I know, there has been relatively little research specifically addressing the conscious vs. unconscious or aware vs. unaware victim distinction. Usually, the point that humans are capable of feeling empathic concern for a target unaware of his or her need is made by citing examples that are deemed sufficiently convincing to suffice—e.g., see Hoffman. David Lishner did look at the awareness issue in an experiment in which participants watched a video clip of an infant who was either laughing or crying and who was described either as normal and healthy or as having a painless but terminal heart condition. As you would expect, reported feelings of sympathy and concern tracked the need, not the perceptual display.

However, if this was true, it was not reflected in ratings of perceived need. This speaks to your second point. As you quite correctly observe, I have suggested that the psychological antecedents of empathic concern are (a) perception of the other as in need and (b) intrinsic valuing of the other’s welfare. We measured perception of need in the reported experiment and found no reliable difference across the four conditions. Means ranged from 7.06 to 7.38 on a 1-9 scale, F (3, 60) = 0.13, p > .90, with higher numbers reflecting greater need (see the original research report). So, the differences in reported empathic concern in this experiment are not easily attributed to differences in perceived need.

That said, I quite agree that differences in perception of need can, at times, account for differences in empathic concern. Indeed, David Lishner and I found that it is important to distinguish two forms of need: current need and potential need (need for protection). The child, dog, and puppy in our experiment may have been perceived, as you suggest, as more vulnerable to potential need. If so, even in the absence of current need—when, for example, sleeping peacefully—these targets should evoke some empathic concern, specifically, feelings of tenderness, warmth, and soft-heartedness (but not sympathy). Less vulnerable adult targets should evoke these empathic emotions only when in current need. (Current need implies potential need.) Across four experiments, David has found support for these predictions.

Third, I would take your suggestion that failure to recognize need may be one way in which our more egoistic impulses counteract our altruistic tendencies one step farther. Laura Shaw and her colleagues found evidence of empathy avoidance, an egoistic motive to avoid empathic concern and the altruistic motivation it evokes. Thus, not only oversight but also active avoidance may come into play as we attempt to protect ourselves from our altruistic inclinations. Think, for example, of crossing the street to avoid having to encounter a homeless person.

Finally, by “intrinsic” valuing I mean that the person’s welfare is valued as an end in itself not as a means to some self-serving end (which would be extrinsic or instrumental valuing). I do think it is possible that intrinsic valuing of another’s welfare can emerge out of extrinsic valuing. Gordon Allport spoke of this as functional autonomy. But this is by no means a necessary progression. We can value the welfare of even close others extrinsically, in which case their need is likely to produce self-oriented feelings of personal concern and distress rather than other-oriented feelings of empathic concern. Of course, both forms of valuing—and emotion—can co-exist, although there is some evidence that when they do, the extrinsic is apt to undermine the intrinsic.

The gender issue is also interesting and important. My proposal is, as you suspect, that parental nurturance may underlie empathy-induced altruism in both men and women. I think both sexes are capable of tender, compassionate feelings for their progeny—and their pets (and plants?). At the same time, the proposal certainly raises the question of gender differences. In our research, we sometimes find gender differences in reported empathic concern; we sometimes do not. When we do, women always report more empathy than men. Of key importance, however, we have never found a gender difference in the nature of the motivation produced by empathic concern. Insofar as I can tell, empathic concern may be aroused more easily in females than males, at least in some situations, but once aroused, it produces altruistic motivation similarly in males and females.

Finally, let me just note that you are right to accuse me of questioning the established orthodoxy that empathic concern (or sympathetic concern) emerges out of personal distress and emotional resonance. I am suggesting that empathic concern and personal distress may have different developmental (and evolutionary) trajectories. Whether this is right remains to be seen.