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Empathy and correct mental state inferences both promote prosociality
Konrad Lehmann1, Anne Böckler2,3, Olga Klimecki4
1Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Chemnitzer Straße 46, 01187, Dresden, Germany. konrad.lehmann@tu-dresden.de.
Scientific Reports
|October 10, 2022
Summary
Understanding others' minds, or mentalizing, and empathy both promote prosocial behavior. This study shows that accurate mentalizing, like empathy, significantly increases willingness to help others, clarifying their roles in cooperation.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Neuroscience
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Cooperation is vital for resource competition.
- Empathy enhances prosociality, but the role of cognitive perspective-taking (mentalizing) is less clear.
- Previous research presents mixed findings on mentalizing's impact on helping behavior.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether accurate mentalizing, distinct from empathy, predicts prosocial behavior.
- To clarify the relationship between cognitive mentalizing and helping behavior.
- To replicate the effect of empathy induction on prosocial decisions.
Main Methods:
- Adult volunteers (N=94) participated in a laboratory study.
- A video-based task assessed empathy and measured mentalizing accuracy.
- Willingness to help video narrators was the primary outcome measure.
Main Results:
- Empathy induction successfully led to more prosocial decisions, replicating prior findings.
- Accurate mentalizing was found to significantly increase participants' willingness to help.
- This study provides evidence for mentalizing's independent contribution to prosociality.
Conclusions:
- Both empathy and accurate mentalizing are crucial drivers of prosocial behavior.
- Correctly inferring others' mental states directly enhances the inclination to help.
- Findings contribute to a clearer understanding of the cognitive and affective underpinnings of cooperation.
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