Date of Award
1992
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
Abstract
C. Daniel Batson (1987, 1990) and associates (1983, 1988, 1989) have presented and experimentally tested the empathy-altruism hypothesis of altruistic helping. However, uncontrolled variables could have been associated with the results supporting the empathy-altruism hypothesis. The present study has generally replicated Batson and associates' standard experimental design and extended experimental control across the variables of gender and levels of victimization. Victim scenarios used for stimulus were created and calibrated to embody catastrophic, moderate and mild levels on the DSM III-R Psychosocial Stressors Scale using Cantor and Michel's (1979) procedures for investigating prototypes. The participants were 72 undergraduatePsychology students at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Half of the participants were female and half were male. Empathy was manipulated, participants listened to vignettes of persons ostensibly in distress and then were given the opportunity to volunteer time or pledge money to help. The procedures successfully manipulated empathy and replicated the empathy-altruism effect. However, the results also showed that participants' victim related schemata and cognitions emerged as the most salient and robust variable associated with helpful responding. The results are not uniformly consistent with the theory that empathic responding is the primary factor associated with altruistic behavior. The results are more consistent with the view that cognitions associated with social perception, categorical responding and personal norms are more important for altruistic helping than has been traditionally considered in this line of research. Further, the role of social perception and cognition is discussed with reference to the initiation of empathic responding, personal norms and subsequent altruistic helping. It is asserted that altruistic helping is a conjoint product of affective responding and the negative reinforcement of helpful responding by avoiding self sanctions.
Recommended Citation
Tillitski, Christopher J., "Empathy, Gender, Victimization And Altruistic Helping" (1992). All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 808.
https://scholars.indianastate.edu/etds/808