A student observes a classmate, who they don't know well, become visibly upset after receiving a poor grade on a presentation. According to the empathy-altruism hypothesis, which of the following reasons for offering comfort would be the best example of the mechanism it describes?

Batson (1991) proposed that when we feel empathy for others, we will try to help out of purely altruistic reasons.

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New York University

- Instinct and Genes
- Social Exchange
- Empathy and Altruism

Basic Motives Underlying Prosocial Behavior: Theories

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M., & Sommers, S. R. (2018). Revel Social Psychology (10th ed.). Pearson.

Revel Social Psychology

Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020, April 22). Psychology (2nd ed.). OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction

OpenStax Psychology (2nd ed.) Textbook

We make decisions (such as helping others) in order to maximize our rewards and minimize our costs.

Social Exchange theory

Evolutionary psychologists attempted to explain prosocial behavior in three ways: kin selection, the norm of reciprocity, and group selection.

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