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Contents
- Abstract
- Linking Empathy, Altruism, and Morality
- Is a Link Between Empathy-Induced Altruism and Morality Inevitable?
- Independence of empathy-Induced Altruism and Morality
- The Present Research
- Experiment 1: Assigning Workers to Tasks
- Method
- Participants
- Procedure
- Assignment to supervisor role
- Manipulation of communication
- Manipulation of empathy
- Empathic reaction to Participant C's need
- Dependent measure: Assigning workers to tasks
- Ancillary measures
- Debriefing
- Results and Discussion
- Effectiveness of the empathy manipulation
- Effect of experimental condition on assignment to task
- Decision strategies used in each experimental condition
- Participants' perceptions of the most fair decision strategy
- Were participants really concerned to be fair?
- Participants' perceptions of the morality of their decision strategy
- Relative importance of fairness (justice) and empathy–induced altruism for task assignment in the low- and high-empathy conditions
- Mediation of the effect of the empathy manipulation on task assignment
- Implications of Experiment 1
- Experiment 2: Playing God
- Method
- Participants
- Procedure
- Manipulation of empathy
- Empathic reaction to Sheri Summers's need
- Dependent measure: Opportunity to move Sheri into the Immediate Help Group
- Ancillary measures
- Debriefing
- Results and Discussion
- Effectiveness of the empathy manipulation
- Effect of experimental condition on decision to move Sheri into the Immediate Help Group
- Relative importance of justice and empathy–induced altruism for reassignment decisions
- Mediation of the effect of the empathy manipulation on reassignment
- Further evidence of motivational conflict
- Implications of Experiment 2
- General Discussion
- empathy–Induced Altruism as a Source of Immoral Injustice
- Is Partiality Immoral?
- Implications
- Immorality From empathy–Induced Altruism Outside the Laboratory
- Morality From empathy–Induced Altruism
Figures and Tables
Abstract
Results of 2 experiments supported the proposal that empathy–induced altruism can lead one to act in a way that violates the moral principle of justice. In each experiment, participants were asked to make an allocation decision that affected the welfare of other individuals. Participants who were not induced to feel empathy tended to act in accord with a principle of justice; participants who were induced to feel empathy were significantly more likely to violate this principle, allocating resources preferentially to the person for whom empathy was felt. High-empathy participants who showed partiality agreed with other participants in perceiving partiality to be less fair and less moral (Experiment 1). Overall, results suggested that empathy–induced altruism and the desire to uphold...