Reinterpreting the Empathy-Altruism Relationship: When One Into One Equals Oneness
TLDR
It is suggested that the conditions that lead to empathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but is also directed toward the self.Abstract:
Important features of the self-concept can be located outside of the individual and 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 that empathic concern for another results in selflessness and true altruism. That is, they argue that the conditions that lead to empathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but is also 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 suggest that empathic concern affects helping primarily as an emotional signal of oneness.read more
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The Effects of the Activation of Money and Credit Card vs. that of Activation of Spirituality - Which One Prompts Pro-Social Behaviours?
TL;DR: The aim of this article is to present the results of two experiments in which thoughts about money, i.e. both cash and credit cards, and thoughts about spirituality were activated in order to find out in what way these two kinds of activation may influence pro-social behaviours.
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How recipient group membership affects the effect of power states on prosocial behaviors
Fei Jin,Huawei Zhu,Ping Tu +2 more
TL;DR: This paper found that consumers in low-power states help others to meet their reciprocity motive, and helping in-group rather than out-group members can satisfy this motive, but this difference is less salient for high-power consumers because they help other to satisfy their self-enhancement motive.
Journal ArticleDOI
Confrontation and beyond: Examining a stigmatized target's use of a prejudice reduction strategy
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the social psychological literature that examines how targets can be active agents of prejudice reduction for themselves and their group, and discussed the need for research on the processes by which stigmatized targets decide to use a given bias-reduction strategy and on the process by which specific strategies are effective, either alone or in combination when delivered by a stigmatized target.
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“Could this happen to me?”: Threat-related state orientation increases position identification with victims of random, “senseless” violence
TL;DR: This article examined the role of threat-related action-state orientation in how observers become psychologically involved with victims of violence and found that stronger threat-oriented individuals are less effective in down-regulating such threats to the self, they should perceive stronger self-concerned position identification (i.e., "this could happen to me" when confronted with random, “senseless” violence.
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Who cares? Effects of social approach and avoidance motivation on responsiveness to others
Jana Nikitin,Alexandra M. Freund +1 more
TL;DR: Evidence that responsiveness has motivational origins is found and it is suggested that both approach and avoidance motivation might be ways of behaving responsively in potentially difficult social situations.
References
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