Helping Behavior: Empathy, Prosocial Reasoning & Moral Disengagement
Introduction
Study investigates decision process leading individuals to offer or omit help when an explicit request is made in a high-personal-cost scenario.
Integrates emotional factors (Empathy, Personal Distress) and moral–cognitive factors (Prosocial Moral Reasoning – PMR, Moral Disengagement – MD).
Sample: 174 Italian youths (gender split 50\% male) aged 16{-}22 (mean =18, SD=1.01).
Context: Adolescence viewed as critical period where moral character, identity, and agency are formed.
Key example motivating research: Kitty Genovese case (bystander non-intervention despite 38 witnesses).
Theoretical Background
Helping is not guaranteed even with direct request; cost to helper often decisive.
Need to consider:
Affective sphere: capacity for empathic concern vs. self-focused distress.
Cognitive sphere: moral thinking, responsibility, self-regulation (Bandura’s social-cognitive theory).
Batson’s (1991) model: path from emotions → moral cognition → helping behavior.
Empathy & Personal Distress
Empathy: Other-oriented capacity to share/understand another’s feelings; low physiological arousal; motivates altruism even at personal cost.
Personal Distress: Self-focused anxiety/anguish when witnessing suffering; high arousal; motivates self-relief, will help only if cost is low or escape impossible.
Distinct neurobiological correlates (Decety & Lamm 2009).
Empathy ⇒ mature / other-oriented reasoning; Personal Distress ⇒ hedonistic / self-focused reasoning (Eisenberg et al. 2002).
Prosocial Moral Reasoning (PMR)
Decision-making process about helping when interests conflict & rules absent.
Five hierarchical levels (Eisenberg):
Hedonistic Reasoning – self-consequences focused.
Needs-Oriented – acknowledges others’ needs, no deep empathy.
Approval-Oriented – seeks social approval.
Stereotyped – acts on culturally stereotyped good/bad.
Internalized Reasoning – based on internal values: responsibility, justice.
Mature PMR (& especially level 5) correlates with altruistic action in costly or anonymous situations.
Moral Disengagement (MD)
Bandura 1991: Eight mechanisms deactivate self-sanctions, allowing harmful or non-helping actions without guilt:
Moral Justification
Euphemistic Language
Advantageous Comparison
Displacement of Responsibility
Diffusion of Responsibility
Distortion/Disregard of Consequences
Dehumanization
Attribution of Blame
Functions as cognitive distortion enabling self-interest while preserving moral self-image.
Prior work: High MD → aggression, antisocial conduct; little focus on omission of help.
Conceptual Model & Hypotheses
Scenario: Helper & person in need socially similar, interests conflict, assistance costly.
Hypothesis 1: Empathy ↑ ⇒ PMR ↑; Personal Distress ↑ ⇒ PMR ↓.
Hypothesis 2: Empathy ↑ ⇒ MD ↓; Personal Distress ↑ ⇒ MD ↑.
Hypothesis 3: PMR ↑ ⇒ Help ↑; MD ↑ ⇒ Help ↓.
Gender controlled (females generally ↑ empathy/prosociality; males ↑ MD/antisociality).
Methods
Participants
High-school students, Southern Italy.
Living situation: 96.5\% with parents; 61\% have one sibling; 90\% intact families.
Parental education: \approx47\% fathers & 46\% mothers hold high-school diploma.
Measures
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Italian short form)
Empathy: 4 items (α =.62).
Personal Distress: 5 items (α =.70).
Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure (PROM)
7 moral dilemmas; choice scores: help +1, refuse -1, unsure 0.
PMR level ratings (α =.85); Propensity-to-Help summed across dilemmas (α =.84).
Moral Disengagement Scale (Bandura et al. 2001): 32 items, α =.86.
Procedure
Administered in classrooms by 2 trained researchers; confidentiality assured; parental & school consent obtained.
Results
Descriptive Statistics (selected)
Empathy M=2.7, SD=.61; Personal Distress M=1.7, SD=.69; PMR M=1.9, SD=.70; MD M=2.4, SD=.50; Help Propensity M=2.3, SD=2.24.
Significant correlations:
Empathy ↔ PMR r=.45; Empathy ↔ Help r=.37.
Empathy ↔ MD r=-.29.
PMR ↔ Help r=.31.
MD ↔ Help r=-.29.
Structural Equation Model
Software: Mplus 6.12; Final model fit:
\chi^2(57)=68.03, p=.15
CFI=.97, TLI=.97
RMSEA=.000 (CI 0{-}.061), p=.82
SRMR=.063
Key standardized paths:
Empathy → PMR +.17
Empathy → MD -.18
Personal Distress → MD +.22
PMR → Help +.28
MD → Help -.34
Empathy → Help (direct) +.49
Explained variance: PMR 26\%; MD 34\%; Help 20\%.
Gender effects: Males ↑ MD; Females ↑ Empathy & Personal Distress.
Discussion & Interpretation
Positive Pathway: Empathy → Mature PMR → Increased helping, even when costly.
Negative Pathway: Personal Distress → MD → Self-centred escape / omission of help.
Empathy suppresses MD; Personal Distress amplifies MD, serving as self-protection against guilt.
Highlights importance of MD in passive uncivil acts (failure to help) not just active aggression.
Suggests interventions fostering empathic concern & sense of responsibility to counteract omission of help.
Limitations
Cultural specificity (Southern Italy adolescent sample) limits generalizability.
Cross-sectional design precludes causal inference.
Reliance on self-reports; some scales show modest reliability (Empathy α =.62).
Future directions: longitudinal & experimental designs; multi-method assessments; exploration of additional social/contextual antecedents of MD.
Practical & Ethical Implications
Encouraging empathy development during adolescence may bolster community well-being.
Understanding MD mechanisms informs policies aimed at reducing bystander apathy (e.g., training programs, organizational ethics).
Recognizing personal distress as self-focused may help tailor emotional regulation interventions, preventing moral disengagement.
Key References for Further Study
Bandura A. (1991; 2001) – Social-cognitive theory & MD scale.
Batson C.D. (1991) – Altruism framework.
Eisenberg N. et al. (2002; 2006) – PMR development & prosocial behavior.
Decety J. & Lamm C. (2009) – Neuroscience of empathy vs. distress.
Introduction
Study investigates the complex decision process leading individuals to offer or omit help when an explicit request for assistance is made in a high-personal-cost scenario.
This scenario typically involves situations where helping entails significant personal risk, effort, or sacrifice for the helper, contrasting with low-cost helping behaviors.
Integrates both emotional factors (Empathy, Personal Distress) and moral–cognitive factors (Prosocial Moral Reasoning – PMR, Moral Disengagement – MD) to understand their interplay in prosocial decisions.
Sample: 174 Italian youths (gender split approximately 50\% male, 50\% female) aged 16{-}22 (mean =18, SD=1.01), reflecting late adolescence/emerging adulthood.
Context: Adolescence is viewed as a critical developmental period where an individual's moral character, identity, and sense of agency (moral agency) are significantly formed.
Key example motivating research: The infamous Kitty Genovese case, where a young woman was murdered while 38 witnesses reportedly stood by without intervening or calling the police, highlighting bystander non-intervention despite direct and prolonged suffering.
Theoretical Background
Helping is not guaranteed even with a direct request, particularly when the cost to the helper is perceived as high and potentially decisive in the decision-making process.
A comprehensive understanding necessitates considering multiple psychological dimensions:
Affective sphere: This refers to the emotional capacities, specifically the capacity for other-oriented empathic concern versus self-focused personal distress, which can lead to divergent behavioral motivations.
Cognitive sphere: Encompasses an individual's moral thinking, their sense of responsibility, and self-regulatory processes, drawing heavily from social-cognitive theories like Bandura’s work.
Batson’s (1991) empathy-altruism model: Proposes a clear psychological pathway from specific emotions (like empathy) through moral cognition (e.g., perceived responsibility) to resultant helping behavior. This model differentiates altruism (motivated by helping others) from egoism (motivated by self-benefit).
Empathy & Personal Distress
Empathy: Defined as an other-oriented emotional capacity to share and understand another's feelings, often characterized by relatively low physiological arousal when experiencing another's distress. It is a primary motivator for altruistic behavior, even when such actions involve significant personal cost or sacrifice for the helper.
Personal Distress: Described as a self-focused, aversive emotional reaction, such as anxiety, discomfort, or anguish, experienced when witnessing another's suffering. It is typically associated with high physiological arousal. This state primarily motivates self-relief and egoistic behavior, meaning individuals will help only if the perceived cost of helping is low or if escape from the distressing situation is impossible.
Distinct neurobiological correlates have been identified for empathy and personal distress (Decety & Lamm 2009), suggesting separate neural pathways underlie these two emotional responses.
Empathy is theoretically linked to mature / other-oriented prosocial reasoning; Personal Distress is associated with hedonistic / self-focused reasoning (Eisenberg et al. 2002), influencing the quality and motivation of prosocial decisions.
Prosocial Moral Reasoning (PMR)
PMR refers to the cognitive decision-making process individuals engage in when deciding about helping behavior, especially when personal interests might conflict with the needs of others and explicit rules or laws are absent.
Five hierarchical levels of PMR development are proposed by Eisenberg:
Hedonistic Reasoning – Individuals focus primarily on their own direct personal consequences or benefits (e.g.,
Introduction
Study investigates the complex decision process leading individuals to offer or omit help when an explicit request for assistance is made in a high-personal-cost scenario.
This scenario typically involves situations where helping entails significant personal risk, effort, or sacrifice for the helper, contrasting with low-cost helping behaviors.
Integrates both emotional factors (Empathy, Personal Distress) and moral–cognitive factors (Prosocial Moral Reasoning – PMR, Moral Disengagement – MD) to understand their interplay in prosocial decisions.
Sample: 174 Italian youths (gender split approximately 50%\% male, 50%\% female) aged 16{-}22 (mean =18, SD=1.01), reflecting late adolescence/emerging adulthood.
Context: Adolescence is viewed as a critical developmental period where an individual's moral character, identity, and sense of agency (moral agency) are significantly formed.
Key example motivating research: The infamous Kitty Genovese case, where a young woman was murdered while 38 witnesses reportedly stood by without intervening or calling the police, highlighting bystander non-intervention despite direct and prolonged suffering.
Theoretical Background
Helping is not guaranteed even with a direct request, particularly when the cost to the helper is perceived as high and potentially decisive in the decision-making process.
A comprehensive understanding necessitates considering multiple psychological dimensions:
Affective sphere: This refers to the emotional capacities, specifically the capacity for other-oriented empathic concern versus self-focused personal distress, which can lead to divergent behavioral motivations.
Cognitive sphere: Encompasses an individual's moral thinking, their sense of responsibility, and self-regulatory processes, drawing heavily from social-cognitive theories like Bandura’s work.
Batson’s (1991) empathy-altruism model: Proposes a clear psychological pathway from specific emotions (like empathy) through moral cognition (e.g., perceived responsibility) to resultant helping behavior. This model differentiates altruism (motivated by helping others) from egoism (motivated by self-benefit).
Empathy \& Personal Distress
Empathy: Defined as an other-oriented emotional capacity to share and understand another's feelings, often characterized by relatively low physiological arousal when experiencing another's distress. It is a primary motivator for altruistic behavior, even when such actions involve significant personal cost or sacrifice for the helper.
Personal Distress: Described as a self-focused, aversive emotional reaction, such as anxiety, discomfort, or anguish, experienced when witnessing another's suffering. It is typically associated with high physiological arousal. This state primarily motivates self-relief and egoistic behavior, meaning individuals will help only if the perceived cost of helping is low or if escape from the distressing situation is impossible.
Distinct neurobiological correlates have been identified for empathy and personal distress (Decety \& Lamm 2009), suggesting separate neural pathways underlie these two emotional responses.
Empathy is theoretically linked to mature / other-oriented prosocial reasoning; Personal Distress is associated with hedonistic / self-focused reasoning (Eisenberg et al. 2002), influencing the quality and motivation of prosocial decisions.
Prosocial Moral Reasoning (PMR)
PMR refers to the cognitive decision-making process individuals engage in when deciding about helping behavior, especially when personal interests might conflict with the needs of others and explicit rules or laws are absent.
Five hierarchical levels of PMR development are proposed by Eisenberg:
Hedonistic Reasoning – Individuals focus primarily on their own direct personal consequences or benefits (e.g., avoiding punishment, gaining rewards, or experiencing positive feelings).
Needs-Oriented – Acknowledges the needs of others, particularly basic physical or psychological needs, but often without deep empathic understanding of the other person's specific feelings or experiences.
Approval-Oriented – Prosocial decisions are driven by the desire to gain social approval, maintain good relationships, or adhere to conventions about what is considered
Introduction
Study investigates the complex decision process leading individuals to offer or omit help when an explicit request for assistance is made in a high-personal-cost scenario.
This scenario typically involves situations where helping entails significant personal risk, effort, or sacrifice for the helper, contrasting with low-cost helping behaviors.
Integrates both emotional factors (Empathy, Personal Distress) and moral–cognitive factors (Prosocial Moral Reasoning – PMR, Moral Disengagement – MD) to understand their interplay in prosocial decisions.
Sample: 174 Italian youths (gender split approximately 50\% male, 50\% female) aged 16{-}22 (mean =18, SD=1.01), reflecting late adolescence/emerging adulthood.
Context: Adolescence is viewed as a critical developmental period where an individual's moral character, identity, and sense of agency (moral agency) are significantly formed.
Key example motivating research: The infamous Kitty Genovese case, where a young woman was murdered while 38 witnesses reportedly stood by without intervening or calling the police, highlighting bystander non-intervention despite direct and prolonged suffering.
Theoretical Background
Helping is not guaranteed even with a direct request, particularly when the cost to the helper is perceived as high and potentially decisive in the decision-making process.
A comprehensive understanding necessitates considering multiple psychological dimensions:
Affective sphere: This refers to the emotional capacities, specifically the capacity for other-oriented empathic concern versus self-focused personal distress, which can lead to divergent behavioral motivations.
Cognitive sphere: Encompasses an individual's moral thinking, their sense of responsibility, and self-regulatory processes, drawing heavily from social-cognitive theories like Bandura’s work.
Batson’s (1991) empathy-altruism model: Proposes a clear psychological pathway from specific emotions (like empathy) through moral cognition (e.g., perceived responsibility) to resultant helping behavior. This model differentiates altruism (motivated by helping others) from egoism (motivated by self-benefit).
Empathy & Personal Distress
Empathy: Defined as an other-oriented emotional capacity to share and understand another's feelings, often characterized by relatively low physiological arousal when experiencing another's distress. It is a primary motivator for altruistic behavior, even when such actions involve significant personal cost or sacrifice for the helper.
Personal Distress: Described as a self-focused, aversive emotional reaction, such as anxiety, discomfort, or anguish, experienced when witnessing another's suffering. It is typically associated with high physiological arousal. This state primarily motivates self-relief and egoistic behavior, meaning individuals will help only if the perceived cost of helping is low or if escape from the distressing situation is impossible.
Distinct neurobiological correlates have been identified for empathy and personal distress (Decety & Lamm 2009), suggesting separate neural pathways underlie these two emotional responses.
Empathy is theoretically linked to mature / other-oriented prosocial reasoning; Personal Distress is associated with hedonistic / self-focused reasoning (Eisenberg et al. 2002), influencing the quality and motivation of prosocial decisions.
Prosocial Moral Reasoning (PMR)
PMR refers to the cognitive decision-making process individuals engage in when deciding about helping behavior, especially when personal interests might conflict with the needs of others and explicit rules or laws are absent.
Five hierarchical levels of PMR development are proposed by Eisenberg:
Hedonistic Reasoning – Individuals focus primarily on their own direct personal consequences or benefits (e.g., avoiding punishment, gaining rewards, or experiencing positive feelings).
Needs-Oriented – Acknowledges the needs of others, particularly basic physical or psychological needs, but often without deep empathic understanding of the other person's specific feelings or experiences.
Approval-Oriented – Prosocial decisions are driven by the desire to gain social approval, maintain good relationships, or adhere to conventions about what is considered socially acceptable or 'good' behavior.
Stereotyped – Actions are based on simple, often rigid, culturally or socially transmitted stereotypes of good versus bad behavior, without deep internal reflection on the moral implications.
Internalized Reasoning – The most mature level, where prosocial decisions are based on deeply held internal values, principles of responsibility, justice, and the welfare of others, irrespective of external rewards or approval.
Mature PMR (and especially level 5) correlates positively with altruistic action, particularly in costly or anonymous situations where external pressures are minimal.
Moral Disengagement (MD)
Bandura 1991 proposed Eight mechanisms through which individuals can deactivate their self-sanctions, allowing them to engage in harmful or non-helping actions without experiencing guilt or moral discomfort:
Moral Justification – Reinterpreting harmful conduct as serving a moral or noble purpose.
Euphemistic Language – Using sanitised or indirect language to disguise the true nature of harmful actions (e.g., "collateral damage" instead of civilian deaths).
Advantageous Comparison – Comparing one's own harmful actions to more heinous ones to make them seem less bad.
Displacement of Responsibility – Attributing one's actions to the dictates of an authority figure.
Diffusion of Responsibility – Distributing responsibility among a group, so no single individual feels accountable.
Distortion/Disregard of Consequences – Minimizing or denying the harm caused by one's actions.
Dehumanization – Perceiving victims as subhuman, making it easier to treat them poorly.
Attribution of Blame – Blaming the victims for their own suffering.
MD functions as a cognitive distortion enabling individuals to pursue self-interest while preserving a positive moral self-image.
Prior research typically highlights high MD in contexts of aggression and antisocial conduct; however, this study focuses on its role in the omission of help.
Conceptual Model & Hypotheses
This study's scenario involves a helper and a person in need who are socially similar, with their interests conflicting, and assistance being costly to the helper.
Hypothesis 1: Empathy is positively associated with higher levels of PMR (Empathy ↑ ⇒ PMR ↑); conversely, Personal Distress is negatively associated with PMR (Personal Distress ↑ ⇒ PMR ↓).
Hypothesis 2: Empathy is negatively associated with MD (Empathy ↑ ⇒ MD ↓); conversely, Personal Distress is positively associated with MD (Personal Distress ↑ ⇒ MD ↑).
Hypothesis 3: Higher PMR is positively associated with increased helping behavior (PMR ↑ ⇒ Help ↑); conversely, higher MD is negatively associated with helping behavior (MD ↑ ⇒ Help ↓).
Gender was controlled for in the analysis, acknowledging previous findings that females generally report higher empathy and prosociality, while males often report higher MD and antisociality.
Methods
Participants
The study participants were high-school students recruited from various schools in Southern Italy.
Living situation demographics: 96.5\% lived with their parents; 61\% had at least one sibling; and 90\% came from intact families.
Parental education levels: Approximately 47\% of fathers and 46\% of mothers held a high-school diploma, indicating a diverse socioeconomic background within the sample.
Measures
Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Italian short form): Used to assess emotional components.
Empathy: Measured using 4 items, with an internal consistency reliability (α) of .62, indicating moderate reliability.
Personal Distress: Measured using 5 items, with an internal consistency reliability (α) of .70, indicating acceptable reliability.
Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure (PROM): Used to assess moral-cognitive reasoning.
Participants were presented with 7 moral dilemmas, and their choices were scored: help (+1), refuse (-1), or unsure (0).
PMR level ratings (α .85) were derived from these dilemmas, reflecting the quality of moral reasoning. Propensity-to-Help scores were summed across dilemmas (α .84), indicating a reliable measure of helping inclination.
Moral Disengagement Scale (Bandura et al. 2001): Comprised 32 items, with an overall internal consistency reliability (α) of .86, indicating good reliability.
Procedure
The measures were administered in classrooms during regular school hours by 2 trained researchers.
Confidentiality of responses was assured to all participants.
Both parental consent and school consent were obtained prior to data collection, ensuring ethical compliance and participant protection.
Results
Descriptive Statistics (selected)
Key descriptive statistics for measured variables:
Empathy: Mean (M=2.7), Standard Deviation (SD=.61)
Personal Distress: M=1.7, SD=.69
PMR: M=1.9, SD=.70
MD: M=2.4, SD=.50
Help Propensity: M=2.3, SD=2.24
Significant correlations observed:
Empathy showed a significant positive correlation with PMR (r=.45) and Help Propensity (r=.37).
Empathy showed a significant negative correlation with MD (r=-.29).
PMR showed a significant positive correlation with Help Propensity (r=.31).
MD showed a significant negative correlation with Help Propensity (r=-.29).
Structural Equation Model (SEM)
Statistical software: Mplus 6.12 was used for structural equation modeling to test the proposed conceptual model.
Final model fit indices indicated a good fit to the data:
Chi-square (\chi^2(57)=68.03), with a non-significant p-value (p=.15), suggesting a good fit.
Comparative Fit Index (CFI=.97) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI=.97) both above the recommended .95 threshold.
Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA=.000) with a 90\% confidence interval (CI 0{-}.061) and a p-value of .82 (indicating close fit).
Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR=.063) below the recommended .08 threshold.
Key standardized path coefficients representing the strength and direction of relationships:
Empathy → PMR: +.17 (positive and significant)
Empathy → MD: -.18 (negative and significant)
Personal Distress → MD: +.22 (positive and significant)
PMR → Help: +.28 (positive and significant)
MD → Help: -.34 (negative and significant)
Empathy → Help (direct path): +.49 (strong positive and significant, indicating a direct effect on helping not fully mediated by PMR or MD).
Explained variance (R-squared values):
PMR: 26\% of its variance was explained by the predictors in the model.
MD: 34\% of its variance was explained by the predictors.
Help Propensity: 20\% of its variance was explained by the predictors.
Gender effects within the model: Males exhibited significantly higher levels of MD, while females reported significantly higher levels of Empathy and Personal Distress.
Discussion & Interpretation
Positive Pathway: The findings support a clear pathway where higher Empathy leads to more Mature Prosocial Moral Reasoning, which in turn significantly increases the likelihood of offering help, even in costly situations.
Negative Pathway: Conversely, Personal Distress contributes to Moral Disengagement, which subsequently leads to self-centred behaviors such as omission of help or escape from the distressing situation. This suggests MD serves as a mechanism for self-protection against guilt associated with not helping.
The study highlights that Empathy not only directly promotes helping but also indirectly suppresses MD, acting as a protective factor. Personal Distress, however, amplifies MD, serving as a cognitive buffer that helps individuals avoid feelings of guilt when they fail to assist.
A significant contribution of this research is its emphasis on the importance of MD in understanding passive uncivil acts (i.e., failure to help) rather than solely focusing on active aggressive behaviors, expanding the utility of Bandura's theory.
The results suggest that effective interventions aimed at counteracting the omission of help should focus on fostering empathic concern (other-oriented empathy) and cultivating a strong sense of personal responsibility in individuals.
Limitations
Cultural specificity: The study was conducted with an adolescent sample from Southern Italy. This limits the generalizability of the findings to other cultural contexts or age groups, as moral development and prosocial behaviors can vary significantly across different societies.
Cross-sectional design: The study's design captures data at a single point in time, which precludes the establishment of definitive causal inferences regarding the relationships between the variables. While the SEM suggests pathways, longitudinal or experimental designs are needed to confirm causality.
Reliance on self-reports: All measures were based on self-report questionnaires, which are susceptible to social desirability bias (participants may respond in a way they believe is socially acceptable) and introspective limitations.
Modest reliability for some scales: The Empathy scale showed a modest internal consistency reliability (α =.62), which might affect the precision of its measurement and statistical power.
Future directions: Future research should consider longitudinal and experimental designs to explore causal links. Multi-method assessments (e.g., behavioral observations, physiological measures) could mitigate issues with self-reports. Further exploration of additional social and contextual antecedents of MD (e.g., peer group norms, family dynamics, specific situational cues) is also warranted.
Practical & Ethical Implications
Encouraging empathy development: Findings suggest that fostering other-oriented empathy during adolescence can significantly bolster prosocial behavior, leading to greater community well-being and a more caring society.
Understanding MD mechanisms: Gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of moral disengagement can inform the development of policies and training programs aimed at reducing bystander apathy. This could include educational initiatives in schools or ethical training in organizations.
Recognizing personal distress: Acknowledging that personal distress motivates self-focused behavior (and can lead to MD) allows for tailoring emotional regulation interventions. These interventions could help individuals reframe their distress in a way that promotes prosocial action rather than self-protective withdrawal.
Key References for Further Study
Bandura A. (1991; 2001) – Foundational work on Social-cognitive theory and the development of the MD scale.
Batson C.D. (1991) – Key contributions to the understanding of altruism through his empathy-altruism framework.
Eisenberg N. et al. (2002; 2006) – Extensive research on the development of Prosocial Moral Reasoning and its links to prosocial behavior.
Decety J. & Lamm C. (2009) – Neuroscientific investigations differentiating the neural bases of empathy versus personal distress.