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The empathy-altruism hypothesis states that feelings of empathy for another person produce an altruistic motivation to increase that person’s welfare. In the empathy-altruism hypothesis, the term empathy refers to feelings of compassion, sympathy, tenderness, and the like. Altruism refers to a motivational state in which the goal is to increase another person’s welfare as an end in itself. (Altruistic acts are what are ordinarily called “good deeds.”) Note that this definition of altruism is different from the typical usage of the term, which is usually defined to mean an act of helping that involves considerable personal costs to the helper. For centuries, it was assumed that all human behavior, including the helping of others, is egoistically motivated. Specifically, some have suggested that people may help because they feel empathy for another person’s welfare, which may lead to altruism. Those who have argued that empathy may be a source of altruism include naturalist Charles Darwin, philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, as well as psychologists Herbert Spencer, William McDougall, Martin Hoffman, and Dennis Krebs. Social psychologist C. Daniel Batson formulated the empathy-altruism hypothesis as a revision and extension of the ideas developed by these philosophers and psychologists. The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that those feeling high levels of empathy for a person in need will be more likely to help than will those feeling less empathy. Batson, C. D., & Shaw, L. L. (1991). Evidence for altruism: Toward a pluralism of prosocial motives. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 107-122 Experiments have tested the probability that empathy induced altruism can be to revamp attitudes towards stigmatized outgroups. Inducing empathy has improved racial attitudes, as well as attitudes towards homeless people, and towards people with AIDS, and even helped convict murderers and drug dealers (Batson et al.,1997 in press).