Mood Effects of Unsuccessful Helping: Another Test of the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that empathically aroused individuals will report negative mood change after an unsuccessful attempt to help, even if the failure is fully justified. Two experiments tested this prediction. In Experiment 1, subjects'failure at a helping task was either justified or not. As predicted, low-empathy subjects showed relatively little negative mood change when theirfailure was justified, whereas high-empathy subjects showed substantial negative mood change. In Experiment 2 a different manipulation of empathy was used, and mood change was assessed after success on a helping task failed to relieve the other's need. Again as predicted, low-empathy subjects showed little mood change, whereas high-empathy subjects showed substantial negative mood change. Results of each experiment, then, supported the empathy-altruism hypothesis.