Altruism and Egoism in Relation to Prosocial Behaviour

Human beings possess an ability for prosocial behaviour, which can manifest in acts such as donating to a charity or feeling empathy and concern for others. However, it remains unclear to many what motivates people to perform a prosocial act. Do humans ever truly act out of concern for the wellbeing of others, or are human behaviours motivated by self-interest and selfishness? Such questions have been the foundation of a key debate among social scientists and philosophers. Psychologists often study prosocial behaviour through an examination of the motives that encourage it. One of the most prominent distinctions is between prosocial behaviour that is concerned with egoistic motivations and behaviour that is motivated by altruism.

Altruism and Self-Interest in the Context of Prosocial Behavior

Comte (1851) considered both altruism and egoism as separate motives for prosociality. Although he did not deny that behaviour may have self-serving motives, he believed that some social behaviour was an expression of people’s desire to help others and increase others' welfare rather than self-interest. The empathy-altruism hypothesis supports this claim as it challenges the assumption that ultimately all behaviour is carried out for self-interest and benefit for oneself (Batson, 1991). It claims that feelings of empathy for another person produce an altruistic motivation to increase that person’s welfare. Evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis has been provided by studies over several decades, which support the idea that feeling empathy towards others will lead to increased helping of that person (Batson, 2011). However, the observation of an empathy-helping relationship does not tell us about the nature of the motivation that underlies this. Increasing another person’s welfare could be the goal but sought as a means to an end in order to gain self-benefits. Thus, it can be argued that the motivation behind prosocial behaviour is in fact egoistic. Evidence is also supported through the prisoner’s dilemma in which altruism was empathy-induced. Sixty undergraduate women were placed in a one-trial prisoner’s dilemma through which empathy for another person was influenced and controlled (Batson et al., 1995). Findings showed that regardless of how the dilemma was formed, whether as a social exchange or a business transaction, cooperation between the women was higher for those who were led to feel empathy towards others compared to those who were led to not feel empathy. Although this has provided some support for the claim that prosocial behaviour is altruistically motivated, there are also methodological challenges which can be applied to the prisoner’s dilemma. Firstly, the sample used in this study involves only 60 undergraduate women, which limits the findings of the research as the sample size is far too small to be able to represent a wider population of people. As well as this, the research had only used female undergraduates, limiting their findings as they cannot be generalised to males; thus, it is unable to explain that behaviour is motivated by altruism in both males as well as females.

Challenges to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The empathy-altruism hypothesis has been challenged, each of which focused on the possibility that prosocial behaviour is driven by egoistic, self-motivated concerns rather than altruistic motivations. It is argued that another possibility for prosocial behaviour may be that those who tend to feel higher levels of empathy are more likely to help others because they are more egotistically motivated to avoid feeling bad or induce feeling good about themselves (Cialdini et al., 1987). For Comte, as mentioned earlier, both egoism and altruism are motivational states, but the goal of the motivation is what differentiates them from one another. When considering egoism, we need to consider the end goal of egoistic motivation as increasing one’s own welfare. Supporting studies, for example, the arousal: cost-reward model, suggest that even altruistic actions may be motivated by a desire to enhance one’s own welfare and gain self-rewards by using another person as a means to an end by helping them (Dovidio et al., 1991). Research has also shown that people were more willing to help those who were a kin-member but not a stranger. Findings suggested that factors motivating prosocial behaviour in close relationships may be motivated differently from those among strangers (Burnstein et al., 1994). We can further ask whether people give more/help others more when the benefits to others and oneself are emphasised. Feiler et al. (2012) proposed that mixing egoistic and altruistic reasons reduces the likelihood of giving by increasing individuals’ awareness that a persuasion attempt is occurring, which elicits psychological reactance. They found that in their experiment 1, university alumni were less likely to give money to their alma mater when an electronic donation request emphasised both egoistic and altruistic reasons, compared to either reason alone. They then found that in experiment 2, undergraduates reported lower giving intentions when a donation request emphasised an altruistic and an egoistic reason, compared to either of the reasons alone.

Conclusion

Taking into consideration the above arguments for both sides of the debate, we can conclude that prosocial behaviour is increasingly motivated by altruism; the idea that people act in ways for the benefits of others. Although evidence has been provided to argue that behaviour is potentially motivated altruistically, it is more clear to see that human beings tend to act prosocially in order to increase the welfare and benefits of others rather than oneself. However, it can be argued that there is a need to research and compare current prosocial behaviour in order to identify the biggest motivator as well as identify other confounding variables that may induce more prosocial behaviours. Understanding the intricate balance between altruism and egoism can provide valuable insights into human nature and the complex motivations behind our actions.

References

• Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Toward a social-psychological answer. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Batson, C. D. (2011). Altruism in humans. Oxford University Press.
• Batson, C. D., et al. (1995). Empathy and the Collective Good: Caring for One of the Others in a Social Dilemma. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(4), 619-631.
• Burnstein, E., et al. (1994). Some neo-Darwinian decision rules for altruism: Weighing cues for inclusive fitness as a function of the biological importance of the decision. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(5), 773-789.
• Cialdini, R. B., et al. (1987). Empathy-based helping: Is it selflessly or selfishly motivated? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(4), 749-758.
• Dovidio, J. F., et al. (1991). The Arousal: Cost-Reward Model and the Process of Intervention: A Review of the Evidence. In Prosocial behavior (pp. 86-118). Sage Publications.
• Feiler, D. C., et al. (2012). Altruistic and egoistic motives for sharing: A disjunctive model of prosocial behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 1235-1242.