Daniel Batson
Encyclopedia
C. Daniel Batson is an American
social psychologist. He holds both doctoral degrees in Theology (from Princeton Theological Seminary
) and Psychology (from Princeton University
's Department of Psychology
). He obtained his doctorate under John Darley
and has taught at the University of Kansas
. He is especially known for his contributions to three fields: the social psychology of altruism
, empathic concern
, and psychology of religion
.
hypothesis, which states that "feeling empathy for [a] person in need evokes motivation to help [that person] in which these benefits to self are not the ultimate goal of helping; they are unintended consequences" (Batson & Shaw 1991, p. 114). The theory, initially proposed as an explanation of the so-called "empathy-helping relationship", implies that pure altruism
is possible and that psychological egoism
is false. Indeed, Aronson, Wilson and Akert (2005) have described Batson as "the strongest proponent that people often help others purely out of the goodness of their hearts" (Aronson et al., 2005, p362). Batson has published experimental research to support the empathy-altruism hypothesis against various alternative egoistic explanations. However, critics---who believe that all apparently altruistic actions are actually egoistic---have attacked the theory (see, for example, the competing negative state relief model
). More on the empathy-altruism hypothesis can be found in a number of social psychology text books, including Brehm and Kassin (1996).
Batson is also the co-author of an often-cited study examining bystander intervention in theology students (Darley & Batson, 1973); although this study is often cited as evidence that exposure to the parable of the Good Samaritan did not make the students more helpful, there has been debate about whether Batson used appropriate statistics to analyze this study (Greenwald, 1975).
has for a long time been interested in the distinction between imagining the other and imagining oneself, and in particular in the emotional and motivational consequences of these two perspectives. A number of these studies conducted by Batson documented that focusing on another’s feelings may evoke stronger empathic concern
, while explicitly putting oneself into the shoes of the target (imagine self) induces both empathic concern and personal distress
. In one such study, Batson and colleagues investigated the affective consequences of different perspective-taking instructions when participants listened to a story about Katie Banks, a young college student struggling with her life after the death of her parents. This study demonstrated that different instructions had distinct effects on how participants perceived the target’s situation. Notably, participants imagining themselves to be in Katie’s place showed stronger signs of discomfort and personal distress than participants focusing on the target’s responses and feelings (imagine other), or as participants instructed to take on an objective, detached point of view. Also, both perspective-taking instructions differed from the detached perspective by resulting in higher empathic concern. This observation may help explain why observing a need situation does not always yield to prosocial behavior
: if perceiving another person in an emotionally or physically painful circumstance elicits personal distress, then the observer may tend not to fully attend to the other's experience and as a result lack sympathetic behaviors.
Batson recently collaborated with University of Chicago
neuroscientist Jean Decety
in the investigation of the neural underpinnings of empathy
and personal distress, in a study using functional neuroimaging
. While being scanned, participants watched a series of video-clips featuring patients undergoing painful medical treatment. They were asked to either put themselves explicitly in the shoes of the patient (imagine self), or to focus on their feelings and affective expressions (imagine other). The behavioral data confirmed that explicitly projecting oneself into an aversive situation leads to higher personal distress – while focusing on the emotional and behavioral reactions of another’s plight is accompanied by higher empathic concern and lower personal distress. The neuroimaging data were consistent with this finding and provided insights into the neural correlates of these distinct behavioral responses. The self-perspective evoked stronger hemodynamic responses in brain regions involved in coding the motivational-affective dimensions of pain, including bilateral insular cortices, anterior anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and various structures involved in motor preparation. The amygdala
plays a critical role in the evaluation of actual or potential threats. Imagining oneself to be in a painful and potentially dangerous situation thus might therefore have triggered a stronger fearful and/or aversive response than imagining someone else to be in the same situation.
between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations, does not exhaust all possible orientations to being religious; rather, he believes it is important to refer to what he calls Quest, a form of religiosity that views questions and the answers to those questions as being of equal importance (Batson & Schoenrade, 1991a; 1991b). This view has been controversial, and critics have questioned whether this Quest really does correlate with any other variable germane to religiosity. He has also written about religious experiences, defending a four-stage model of religious experiences, based upon Graham Wallas
' four-stage model of problem-solving in the psychology of creativity
(Batson, Schoenrade & Ventis, 1993).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
social psychologist. He holds both doctoral degrees in Theology (from Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
) and Psychology (from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
's Department of Psychology
Princeton University Department of Psychology
The Princeton University Department of Psychology, located in Green Hall, is an academic department of Princeton University on the corner of Washington St. and William St. in Princeton, New Jersey. For over a century, the department has been one of the most notable psychology departments in the...
). He obtained his doctorate under John Darley
John Darley
John M. Darley is a distinguished American social psychologist, who has made contributions to the study of helping behaviour...
and has taught at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
. He is especially known for his contributions to three fields: the social psychology of altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
, empathic concern
Empathic concern
Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
, and psychology of religion
Psychology of religion
Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious traditions, as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The science attempts to accurately describe the details, origins, and uses of religious beliefs and behaviours...
.
Batson on altruism
Batson has become well-known for the empathy-altruismEmpathy-altruism
Empathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on feelings for others.The social exchange theory basically states that altruism does not exist unless benefits outweigh the costs. C. Daniel Batson disagrees. He feels that people help out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The...
hypothesis, which states that "feeling empathy for [a] person in need evokes motivation to help [that person] in which these benefits to self are not the ultimate goal of helping; they are unintended consequences" (Batson & Shaw 1991, p. 114). The theory, initially proposed as an explanation of the so-called "empathy-helping relationship", implies that pure altruism
Altruism
Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
is possible and that psychological egoism
Psychological egoism
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly,...
is false. Indeed, Aronson, Wilson and Akert (2005) have described Batson as "the strongest proponent that people often help others purely out of the goodness of their hearts" (Aronson et al., 2005, p362). Batson has published experimental research to support the empathy-altruism hypothesis against various alternative egoistic explanations. However, critics---who believe that all apparently altruistic actions are actually egoistic---have attacked the theory (see, for example, the competing negative state relief model
Negative State Relief Model
The negative-state relief model states that human beings have an innate drive to reduce negative moods. They can be reduced by engaging in any mood-elevating behavior, including helping behavior, as it is paired with positive value such as smiles and thank you...
). More on the empathy-altruism hypothesis can be found in a number of social psychology text books, including Brehm and Kassin (1996).
Batson is also the co-author of an often-cited study examining bystander intervention in theology students (Darley & Batson, 1973); although this study is often cited as evidence that exposure to the parable of the Good Samaritan did not make the students more helpful, there has been debate about whether Batson used appropriate statistics to analyze this study (Greenwald, 1975).
Batson on empathy
Work in social psychologySocial psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
has for a long time been interested in the distinction between imagining the other and imagining oneself, and in particular in the emotional and motivational consequences of these two perspectives. A number of these studies conducted by Batson documented that focusing on another’s feelings may evoke stronger empathic concern
Empathic concern
Empathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
, while explicitly putting oneself into the shoes of the target (imagine self) induces both empathic concern and personal distress
Personal distress
Personal distress is an aversive, self-focused emotional reaction to the apprehension or comprehension of another's emotional state or condition. This negative affective state often occurs as a result of emotional contagion when there is confusion between self and other...
. In one such study, Batson and colleagues investigated the affective consequences of different perspective-taking instructions when participants listened to a story about Katie Banks, a young college student struggling with her life after the death of her parents. This study demonstrated that different instructions had distinct effects on how participants perceived the target’s situation. Notably, participants imagining themselves to be in Katie’s place showed stronger signs of discomfort and personal distress than participants focusing on the target’s responses and feelings (imagine other), or as participants instructed to take on an objective, detached point of view. Also, both perspective-taking instructions differed from the detached perspective by resulting in higher empathic concern. This observation may help explain why observing a need situation does not always yield to prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, or "voluntary behavior intended to benefit another", consists of actions which "benefit other people or society as a whole," "such as helping, sharing, donating, co- operating, and volunteering." These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and...
: if perceiving another person in an emotionally or physically painful circumstance elicits personal distress, then the observer may tend not to fully attend to the other's experience and as a result lack sympathetic behaviors.
Batson recently collaborated with University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
neuroscientist Jean Decety
Jean Decety
Jean Decety is a neuroscientist and an internationally recognized expert on cognitive neuroscience and social neuroscience. His research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition, particularly empathy, sympathy, emotional self-regulation and more generally...
in the investigation of the neural underpinnings of empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
and personal distress, in a study using functional neuroimaging
Functional neuroimaging
Functional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions...
. While being scanned, participants watched a series of video-clips featuring patients undergoing painful medical treatment. They were asked to either put themselves explicitly in the shoes of the patient (imagine self), or to focus on their feelings and affective expressions (imagine other). The behavioral data confirmed that explicitly projecting oneself into an aversive situation leads to higher personal distress – while focusing on the emotional and behavioral reactions of another’s plight is accompanied by higher empathic concern and lower personal distress. The neuroimaging data were consistent with this finding and provided insights into the neural correlates of these distinct behavioral responses. The self-perspective evoked stronger hemodynamic responses in brain regions involved in coding the motivational-affective dimensions of pain, including bilateral insular cortices, anterior anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and various structures involved in motor preparation. The amygdala
Amygdala
The ' are almond-shaped groups of nuclei located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system.-...
plays a critical role in the evaluation of actual or potential threats. Imagining oneself to be in a painful and potentially dangerous situation thus might therefore have triggered a stronger fearful and/or aversive response than imagining someone else to be in the same situation.
Batson on religion
Batson's most famous contribution to the psychology of religion has been his argument that the traditional distinction, made by Gordon AllportGordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology...
between intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations, does not exhaust all possible orientations to being religious; rather, he believes it is important to refer to what he calls Quest, a form of religiosity that views questions and the answers to those questions as being of equal importance (Batson & Schoenrade, 1991a; 1991b). This view has been controversial, and critics have questioned whether this Quest really does correlate with any other variable germane to religiosity. He has also written about religious experiences, defending a four-stage model of religious experiences, based upon Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics....
' four-stage model of problem-solving in the psychology of creativity
Creativity
Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new that has some kind of value. What counts as "new" may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs...
(Batson, Schoenrade & Ventis, 1993).
Additional references
- Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D. & Akert, R.M. (2005). Social Psychology. New Jersey: Pearson. ISBN 0-13-178686-5.
- Brehm, J. & Kassin, S. (1996). Social PsychologyBoston: Houghton Mifflin (Third Edition). ISBN 0-395-73630-7.
See also
- Social cognitionSocial cognitionSocial cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
- AltruismAltruismAltruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...
- EmpathyEmpathyEmpathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
- Empathic concernEmpathic concernEmpathic concern refers to other-oriented emotions elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need. These other-oriented emotions include feelings of tenderness, sympathy, compassion, soft-heartedness, and the like...
- Empathy-altruismEmpathy-altruismEmpathy-altruism is a form of altruism based on feelings for others.The social exchange theory basically states that altruism does not exist unless benefits outweigh the costs. C. Daniel Batson disagrees. He feels that people help out of genuine concern for the well-being of the other person. The...
- Social neuroscienceSocial neuroscienceSocial neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
- Social psychologySocial psychologySocial psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...