Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-292) and index.
Contents:
1. An Unsettling Surprise -- Part I. Starting the Search -- 2. What We're Looking For -- 3. How to Find It -- 4. The Prime Suspect -- Part II. More Suspects -- 5. Avoiding Shame and Guilt -- 6. Pursuing Pride -- 7. One Way to Feel Better -- 8. The Pleasure of Empathic Joy -- Part III. Three New Possibilities -- 9. A Gang -- 10. Self-Other Merging -- 11. Premature Release of the Prime -- Part IV. Facing the Consequences -- 12. How Can It Be? -- 13. Some Good News -- 14. Some Bad -- 15. After the Fall.
Summary:
For centuries, the egoism-altruism debate has echoed through Western thought. Egoism says that the motivation for everything we do, including our seemingly selfless acts of care for others, is to gain one or another self-benefit. Altruism, while not denying the force of self-interest, says that under certain circumstances we can care for others for their sakes, not our own. Over the past half-century, social psychologists have turned to laboratory experiments on humans to provide a scientific resolution of this debate about our nature. The experiments have focused on the possibility that empathic concern-other-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need-produces altruistic motivation to remove that need. With carefully constructed experimental designs, these scientists have tested the nature of the motivation produced by empathic concern, determining whether it is egoistic or altruistic and, thereby, providing an answer to a fundamental question about what makes us tick. Framed as a detective story, this book traces the scientific search for altruism through numerous studies and attempts to examine various motivational suspects, reaching the improbable conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is indeed part of our nature. The book then considers the implications of this conclusion both for our understanding of who we are as humans (the bad news as well as the good) and for how we might create a more humane society. -- back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.