Does True Altruism Exist? Batson vs. Cialdini Debate

Introduction

The question of whether true altruism exists has been a significant point of debate in social psychology. Batson et al., in their study Is Empathic Emotion a Source of Altruistic Motivation? published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1981), argue that true altruism does exist. By contrast, Cialdini et al., in Empathy-Based Helping: Is It Selflessly or Selfishly Motivated?, also published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1987), contend that true altruism does not exist. This paper analyzes both works and examines the theoretical and empirical grounds on which they disagree.

It is the belief of Batson et al. that people sometimes assist others for reasons that are purely altruistic, and they identify empathy as the primary driver of such behavior. Cialdini et al., on the other hand, do not believe that empathy alone is sufficient to motivate individuals to help others. Instead, they argue that individuals assist others because doing so makes them feel better themselves. This question holds considerable importance for social psychologists studying human behavior.

Batson et al.: Empathy as Altruistic Motivation

Batson et al. describe empathy as "the ability to experience someone else's feelings by imagining what it would be like to be in the same situation as another person." According to their framework, empathy is felt for another person when an individual genuinely imagines being in that person's position. This genuine concern for another's well-being, they argue, makes the individual significantly more likely to offer help for reasons that are altruistic in nature.

Cialdini et al. employ a different model to explain helping behavior in human beings, known as the Negative State Relief Model. This model holds that individuals assist others in order to avoid the negative feelings they would experience if they failed to help. As Cialdini et al. state, the "egoistic orientation of modern psychology should not be dismissed lightly; it has prevailed for decades, and it can easily account for what might appear to be altruistic motivation arising from empathic emotion."

Cialdini et al.: The Negative State Relief Model

Cialdini et al. ask the reader to imagine witnessing someone suffering and then to consider how it would feel to watch that person suffer without offering assistance. According to this model, an individual's emotional distress is reduced when they choose to help, and the ultimate goal of their behavior is therefore to relieve their own discomfort — not to benefit the other person. This egoistic interpretation of helping behavior forms the core of Cialdini et al.'s challenge to the altruism hypothesis.

Batson et al. argue that in order to establish that empathic emotion produces altruistic motivation, it is necessary to identify a point at which the egoistic and altruistic interpretations differ at a behavioral level. As they state, "If no such point can be found, then we must conclude that the claim that empathy evokes altruistic motivation is of no real theoretical significance." In searching for such a point of behavioral difference, Batson et al. stress the importance of first being clear about the points of conceptual difference between the two accounts.