The economics of empathic helping: Support for a mood management motive

Abstract Three hypotheses as to the motivation of empathic helping were tested against each other. The Empathy-Altruism hypothesis suggests that empathy motivates helping that is truly altruistic; the Empathy-Specific Punishment hypothesis suggests that the motive is based on the desire to avoid empathy-specific self-sanctions; and the Negative State Relief hypothesis suggests that empathy leads to a depressed mood which in turn leads to a motivation to alleviate the sadness through helping. Subjects who took either an empathic or nonempathic orientation toward the plight of a needy other were led to expect that one of three events would follow the opportunity to help the victim: exposure to neutral information, exposure to humorous, mood-enhancing information, or the chance to help a different individual. Each of the three hypotheses predicts a different pattern of helping responses within the design. The results showed that empathic subjects demonstrated enhanced helping, except when they anticipated the onset of an alternative event that was likely to restore their mood, a pattern consistent with the predictions of the Negative State Relief hypothesis.