ABSTRACT
When confronted with the suffering of another person, people often experience a host of emotional reactions. Efforts by charity organiza-tions to secure donations for humanitarian aid purposes tend to capitalize on this by presenting persons in need of help in a way that facilitates the generation of these feelings (i.e., by identifying the persons to make them more real; Small & Loewenstein, 2003). This seems to be an effective strategy, as the motivational aspects of feelings have been prominently linked to prosocial behavior in studies investigating determinants for altruism (Andreoni, 1990; Batson, 1990). When considering the origins of such feelings and their impact on charitable behavior, it becomes apparent that providing help to others can arise from both selfless and selfish intentions. The scientific debate about motivations to help other people revolves around the question of whether we help others because we care about them or because we care primarily about ourselves (Batson, 1990; Cialdini et al., 1987, Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Haidt, 2007). One consistent determinant for helping seems to be empathic concern for another person (e.g., Kogut & Ritov, 2005 a, b; Loewenstein & Small, 2007). Nonetheless, prosocial behavior can also be motivated by a desire to reduce aversive arousal that is experienced due to the exposure to the suffering of others (Hoffman, 1981). The reduction of aversive arousal is a form of emotional regulation or mood management (Gross, 2002) that motivates action with the self-interest of making oneself feel better. Understanding the basic mechanisms of affective reactions to the suffering of others and their relation to people’s willingness to donate money is crucial when investigating the motivation to help others.
