Daniel Batson
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"Batson is also the co-author of an often-cited study examining bystander intervention in theology students (Darley & Batson, 1973). In this study, students' religious views and personalities did not correlate with their willingness to help a needy bystander. Rather, the best predictor of whether a student would stop to help was how hurried they felt. Since some students were assigned work on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the assignment had no effect on their behavior, the study has been cited as evidence that exposure to the parable does not make people more helpful. There has been debate about whether Batson used appropriate statistics to analyze this study (Greenwald, 1975)."--Sholem Stein |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
C. Daniel Batson (born March 15, 1943) is an American social psychologist. He has two doctoral degrees, in theology (from Princeton Theological Seminary) and psychology (from Princeton University's Department of Psychology). Batson obtained his doctorate under John Darley and taught at the University of Kansas. He retired in 2006 and now is an emeritus professor in the psychology department at the University of Tennessee. He is best known for his contributions to three fields: the social psychology of altruism, empathic concern, and psychology of religion.
On altruism
Batson has become well known for the empathy-altruism 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. 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 textbooks, 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). In this study, students' religious views and personalities did not correlate with their willingness to help a needy bystander. Rather, the best predictor of whether a student would stop to help was how hurried they felt. Since some students were assigned work on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the assignment had no effect on their behavior, the study has been cited as evidence that exposure to the parable does not make people more helpful. There has been debate about whether Batson used appropriate statistics to analyze this study (Greenwald, 1975).
See also
- Social cognition
- Altruism
- Empathy
- Empathic concern
- Empathy-altruism
- Psychology of religion
- Social neuroscience
- Social psychology
