Altruism/Prosocial Behavior

[btv123]

I am an undergraduate student at a community college with a question that I would appreciate knowledgeable answers to. Normally I would ask my professor, but we were not able to cover all of the chapters during the semester. Because I found social psychology to be particularly interesting, I have begun reading the chapters we did not discuss in class over summer. My question pertains to people's motives for seemingly altruistic behavior. I understand that according to the social exchange theory we will help others when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs, implying that altruism is nonexistent. But according to Botson's "Empathy-Altruism Theory," people will help regardless of the costs if they feel empathy for the person in distress. I became confused after reading the section of the chapter prior to explaining Botson's theory that "considerable evidence indicates that people are aroused and disturbed when they see another person suffer and that they help at least in part to relieve their own distress" (Dovidio, 1984; Dovidio, Piliavin, Gaertner, Schroeder, & Clark, 1991; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1991). The previous excerpt seems to be an alternative wording of Botson's explanation for altruism except that it supports the social exchange theory. The idea being that the person's perceived benefit of relieving their own distress(by helping the individual) caused by the salient distress of another (feeling empathy for the unfortunate individual) would be a greater reward to their self interest than if they did not help the person at all. So given the explanation of my thought process, why is Botson's Empathy-Altruism Theory considered to be discrepant from the social exchange theory? And why does it encompass the social exchange theory when the social exchange theory seems(at least to me) to serve as a better explanation for altruistic behavior?

Thanks,
btv123

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[Otter56]

i am no expert - recent undergrad and just finished a paper on altruism. hopefully if i am wrong here someone with more knowledge will chime in. in other words, this is just an opinion...

i don't think the two theories are mutually exclusive; they explain motivation from different perspectives.
social-exchange theory says we attach a cost-benefit analysis to every personal action (behavior) with other people. so in whatever interactions we have socially, we consider the cost and the expected benefits/results of the relationship. in our relationships with friends we have certain expectations of what we receive in that relationship - if it doesn't meet our needs/expectations or the cost is too great we move on. in determining to help another person we also weigh the cost, and perhaps the benefit is our feeling relief if we are emotionally affected by the other's need for help. so again we measure cost vs benefit.
i think the empathy-altruism theory is a focus on what motivates us to help others (i.e. it is not about cost-benefit analysis) and i think it is based on a little more than empathy - it is a combination of empathy, emotional response, and our personality. these three apects represent a threshold that, if reached, motivate us to help.
both theories can work together. we all see/know of people that need help, but we choose to help or not based on personal cost, benefit, emotional response, empathy, and personality. think for a moment of all the need there is in the world that you are aware of - how do you decide to help or not? is it based on personal cost/ability? empathy? emotion? a sense of social responsibility? maybe some or all of the above...
the way i view it, social-exchange provides a basis for the majority of our behaviors when interacting w/ others, whereas empathy-altruism describes a primarily emotional response based on empathy for another.