Empathy and reasoning aren’t rivals – new research shows they work together to drive people to help more
For years, philosophers and psychologists have debated whether empathy helps or hinders the ways people decide how to help others. Critics of empathy argue that it makes people care too narrowly – focusing on individual stories rather than the broader needs of society – while careful reasoning enables more impartial, evidence-based choices.
Our new research , forthcoming in the academic journal PNAS Nexus, a flagship peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests this “heart versus head” argument is too simple. Empathy and reasoning aren’t rivals – they work together. Each one on its own predicts more generous, far-reaching acts of assistance. And when they operate side by side, people tend to help in the fairest ways – not favoring some over others – and in ways that touch the most lives.
We studied two groups that regularly help others at personal cost. One consisted of living organ donors who gave kidneys to strangers . The other included “ effective altruists ,” who use evidence and logic to direct substantial portions of their income or careers toward causes that save the most lives per dollar, such as fighting extreme poverty or preventable illness.
All participants completed survey measures of empathy – essentially, how much they care about and are moved by others’ suffering. They also completed survey measures of reasoning. These assess how often people slow down, reflect and think through things before deciding what to do.
We also examined how these abilities related to a range of altruistic judgments and behaviors, from hypothetical choices – such as deciding whether to help a close friend or a distant stranger – to real-world donations.
On average, organ donors scored higher on empathy, and effective altruists scored higher on reflective reasoning – slowing down and thinking things through. But across all participants, both traits were linked to broader, more outward-looking helping. People with either an elevated heart or head, and especially those with both compared with average adults, tended to support distant others and focus on helping as many people as possible.
Even among organ donors, whose empathic ability is far above average adults’, empathy did not make them biased toward those who were close or familiar. When we measured their altruistic judgments and real-world donations, they were just as likely as average adults, and sometimes even more likely, to favor causes that saved the greatest number of lives.
These patterns challenge the assumption that empathy can narrow moral concern. In practice, we found, empathy can broaden it.
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