| dc.description.abstract | We focus on the relation between prosocial behaviour and social class by including
three relevant aspects: the social class of the recipient of help, the level of empathy, and
the type of prosocial behavior, namely helping -which implies less commitment- and
caring -which assumes stronger ties among the helper and the recipient of help. In one
experimental study we found that only for high-class participants empathy has a
positive effect on helping both the ingroup and the outgroup. When it comes to caring
about others, empathy has a positive effect for both high and low-class participants, but
only when the recipient belongs to the ingroup. That is, empathy has a positive effect on
intergroup helping (for high-class participants), but not on intergroup caring. This
highlights that empathy is not necessarily useful to improve intergroup relations and
that different factors moderate the relation between social class and prosocial behavior.
Keywords: prosocial behavior, social class, empathy, helping, caring | |
