1. Selfish or Selfless?
On the signal value of emotion in altruistic behavior
Deborah Small
Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
In collaboration with Alix Barasch, Emma Levine, Jonathan Berman
Forthcoming in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

2. The self-interest assumption
“No man giveth but with intention of good to himself”
Thomas Hobbes, 1651
The assumption of self-interest in fundamental in economics. Yet research in psychology and behavioral economics has challenged this assumption with evidence demonstrating that even if very controlled settings people often make sacrifices for the welfare others even when they stand to gain no material rewards and in anonymous settings for which they also stand to gain no reputational benefits.

3. Is emotion compatible with pure altruism?
Skeptics of altruism argue that emotion is a selfish explanation for prosocial behavior
Cialdini and colleagues (Negative state relief)
Andreoni (Warm-glow giving)
Skeptics of the existence of altruism argue that even in such controlled settings, individuals may instead be motivated by intrapsychic rewards.
Cialdini has famously debated Dan Batson on this point—arguing that the motive to relieve distress provides a selfish explanation for prosocial behavior. Many Economists are similarly skeptical that emotion-driven giving reflects genuine altruism; emotion is believed to represent a self-interested motive which provides an economically-rational explanation for generous behavior.
I’m not disputing whether altruism exists but given this potential incompatibility between emotion and altruism we ask the quesiton of how people view emotional motives and emotional benefits in the context of prosocial behavior.
What do lay people think?

4. What does emotion signal?
Emotion  selfishness

5. What does emotion signal?
Emotion  selfishness
Emotion  authentic caring
Untainted signal of motives and character
Newcombe & Ashkanasy, 2002; Ames & Johar, 2009; Reed, Zeglen, & Schmidt, 2012
Norms of emotional expression
Collins & Miller, 1994; Uhlmann, Zhu, & Tannenbaum, 2013; Szczurek, Monin, & Gross, 2012
we propose that emotion provides information about the sincerity of one’s underlying motives, Emotion not only contains positive signal value, but a lack of emotion also carries negative stigma.

6. Overview of Studies Judgments of Moral Character Emotion as benefit
Emotion as motive
(Study 1, 2)
Emotion as benefit
(Study 3)
Expected emotional benefit
(Study 4)
In all of our studies, we examine how people judge the moral character of an actor who does a good deed and we vary the actors level of emotion in different ways.

7. Emotion as motive

8. Stimuli and Key Measure
Moral Character
Moral
Altruistic
Sincere
Pure
Good
Nice
Immoral (r)
Selfish (r)
Insincere (r)
Impure (r)
Mean (r)
Bad (r)

9. Perceived Moral Character
N = 256
b = .34, p < .001

10. Perceived Moral Character
b = .34, p < .001 *
No information *
Not at all
emotional
* indicates that the mean is significantly different (p < .05) from the no information condition

11. Expected Emotional Benefits
b = .35, p < .001 *
No information *
Not at all
emotional
* indicates that the mean is significantly different (p < .05) from the no information condition

12. Self vs. other-focused emotion
Empathy is defined as other-focused—directed toward the beneficiaries of one’s good deeds, whereas distress is defined as self-focused—evoking an “egoistic motivation to reduce one's own aversive arousal” (Batson et al., 1987, p. 19). Distress is theorized to be selfish, because it is associated with a desire to relieve personal discomfort rather than a desire to help others.
This study investigates whether emotion that is specified as either empathy or distress differentially affects perceptions of moral character. This permits an examination of whether lay beliefs about the nature of personal distress concur with psychological theories that position distress as selfish.

13. Perceived Moral Character
N = 470
p < .001
p = .03
Empathy
Distress
Main effect of emotion level: p < .001; Interaction: p = .002

14. Emotion as benefit

15. Stimuli
these studies indicate that people do not view emotion-driven prosocial behavior as selfish, despite inferring that emotional donors reap emotional benefits. To the contrary, emotion signals that the donor’s motivation was authentically prosocial, and thus, he is judged as having high moral character. Study 4 examines emotion that is experienced as a consequence of giving. This study manipulates emotional benefits directly, rather than measuring emotional benefits as an inference resulting from emotional motives.

16. Perceived Moral Character
N = 238
b = .20, p < .001
No information * *
* indicates that the mean is significantly different (p < .05) from the no information condition

17. expected emotional benefit

18. Predictions across types of expected benefits
Actors who expect material or reputational benefits
Seen as less altruistic
Actors who expect hedonic benefits
Seen as more altruistic
Previous work demonstrates that when prosocial actors reap certain material or reputational benefits, individuals discount their character (Newman & Cain, 2014; Lin-Healy & Small, 2013; Berman, Levine, Barasch, & Small, 2014). Study 6 compares the expectation of these types of benefits to the expectation of emotional benefits and demonstrates that they have divergent effects on moral character.
all participants read a scenario about an individual who was reading the newspaper one morning and stumbled upon an article about hungry families in his community. After the article, there was a link to donate money to a local soup kitchen. In the emotional benefits conditions, participants learned that the individual either expected that donating would make him feel happy or that he did not expect that donating would affect his mood. In the material benefits conditions, participants learned that the individual either expected to receive a tax break for his donation or that he did not expect to receive a tax break. In the reputational benefits conditions, participants learned that the individual either expected to receive public recognition for his donation because his name would appear in the local newspaper or that he did not expect to receive public recognition because his donation was anonymous. Participants then read that the individual decided to click on the link and donate money to the soup kitchen.

19. Perceived Moral Character Depends on the Type of Benefits an Actor Expects

20. Conclusion Emotion signals moral character
Emotional benefits are not incompatible with perceptions of altruism