How often you help because someone needs it, including when you could leave and nobody would know. A motive, not a saint score.
About this test
Daniel Batson's empathy-altruism research asks whether people help in order to relieve another person's need, or in order to relieve their own discomfort, collect credit, or escape. The experimental clue is helping that continues when escape is easy and when nobody will know. Everyday altruism can also be partial: aimed at a friend, not only at the greatest number. Impartial, number-maximizing help is closer to the utilitarian test. These items are original and ask about costly, quiet, other-directed help.
Question 1 of 11
What this test asks
I help in situations where I could walk away and nobody would know I had been there.
I give time even when I will not be thanked.
A stranger's distress is a reason for me to act, not only a feeling I wait out.
I help mainly when it will be remembered in my favor.
I will take on a real inconvenience to reduce someone else's pain.
If helping will cost me, I look first for a reason the person should handle it alone.
I leave room in the week for other people's needs, not only for my own plans.
I have helped anonymously, with no story to tell afterward.
Other people's emergencies belong to their own circle. They are not mine to enter.
The pull to help, when it comes, is about them. It is not about being seen as good.
I would share a limited good with someone who needs it more, even though I wanted it.
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