Empathy promotes altruistic behavior in economic interactions.
Sci Rep
; 6: 31961, 2016 08 31.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-27578563
ABSTRACT
What are the determinants of altruism? While economists assume that altruism is mainly driven by fairness norms, social psychologists consider empathy to be a key motivator for altruistic behavior. To unite these two theories, we conducted an experiment in which we compared behavior in a standard economic game that assesses altruism (the so-called Dictator Game) with a Dictator Game in which participants' behavioral choices were preceded either by an empathy induction or by a control condition without empathy induction. The results of this within-subject manipulation show that the empathy induction substantially increased altruistic behavior. Moreover, the increase in experienced empathy predicted over 40% of the increase in sharing behavior. These data extend standard economic theories that altruism is based on fairness considerations, by showing that empathic feelings can be a key motivator for altruistic behavior in economic interactions.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudio:
Health_economic_evaluation
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Rep
Año:
2016
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Suiza