PSY220H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Empathic Concern, Murder Of Kitty Genovese, Personal Distress
Document Summary
Empathic concern: a case of pure altruism rewards. reduce our own distress. as relieving our own distress: daniel batson has made a persuasive case for a selfless, other-oriented state that motivates altruistic behaviour. Proposes that any altruistic action, several motives come into play. Two of which are selfish/egotistic (social rewards and personal distress) and a third is more purely oriented towards unselfishly benefiting another person (empathic concern). This can motivate us to help that person even more. Empathy versus personal distress: the experiments were set up so that there are few egotistical motives, but empathy is high. Allowed for escaping distress by leaving experiment: experiment: in a room with a confederate who would receive a shock when they got something wrong. Participants had the opportunity to leave after 2 shocks, while the confederate continued to finish the study. In another condition, the participants were told that they had to stay for all 10 shocks.
