Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: A Theory of Altruistic Motivation

1. The Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
2. Antecedents of Empathic Concern
3. Behavioral Consequences of Empathy-Induced Altruism

Part II: Empirical Evidence

4. Turning to Experiments
5. Testing the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis
6. Two Further Challenges to the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

Part III: Altruism in Action

7. Benefits of Empathy-Induced Altruism
8. Liabilities
9. Toward a Pluralism of Prosocial Motives-and a More Humane Society

Summary and Conclusion

References

About the Author

Dan Batson is an experimental social psychologist. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University in 1972 and then taught at the University of Kansas until his retirement in 2008. For over 30 years, his research has focused on the existence of altruistic motivation and on its antecedents and consequences. He has published well over a hundred research articles and chapters on these topics. This is his second book on altruism.

Reviews

"Daniel Batson's ALTRUISM IN HUMANS is simply one of the most important books of our time for anyone who wants to ponder the problems and prospects of our species. The culmination of a distinguished career of creative and rigorous experimentation, written with both eloquence and rigor, Batson's book illuminates both the power of altruistic motivation and its unfortunate limitations. Since Adam Smith's THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS, nobody has made a larger
contribution to this topic."

Martha Nussbaum
The University of Chicago
"I thought Batson's earlier book on altruism was the cat's pajamas, but this new one is even better. Economists and evolutionary biologists investigate helping behavior, but Batson digs deeper -- into the psychological motives that produce helping (and its absence). Batson constructs a powerful defense of the idea that genuinely altruistic motives are real. His conceptual clarity will win the respect of philosophers and scientists alike."

Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin
"Debates over the existence and importance of genuinely altruistic motivation have played an important role in philosophy since antiquity. By using carefully crafted experiments, Batson and his associates have made more progress on these issues in the last three decades than philosophers have made in the previous two millennia. This extraordinary volume offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of Batson's transformative work and its implications. It
is must reading for philosophers, social scientists and everyone else who is interested in really understanding human nature."

Stephen Stich
Board of Governors Professor
of Philosophy & Cognitive Science
Rutgers University
"Altruism in Humans is a detailed, empirically based theoretical argument that is appropriate for graduate students in social psychology and other professionals in the field. It presents a very complex theoretical argument... I believe that Altruism in Humans is a momentous work that comes after Batson's retirement and will stand as the hallmark of his career." -- Robert D. Mather, Associate Professor of psychology at Central Oklahoma,
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