Mechanisms underlying prosocial behavior, behavior or actions carried out with the intention to benefit another individual, are unclear. Previous studies have found a positive relationship between...Show moreMechanisms underlying prosocial behavior, behavior or actions carried out with the intention to benefit another individual, are unclear. Previous studies have found a positive relationship between empathy and prosocial learning. The current study, inspired by the study of Lockwood and colleagues (2016), consists of two experiments where the link between prosocial learning, learning to obtain rewards for others, and empathy is investigated through a probabilistic learning task based on reinforcement learning principles. Participants had to choose between two different symbols and learn which of these had the highest probability of earning points in three different conditions: for themselves (selfish), for another person (other) or for no one (none). The first experiment measured the conditions with two probabilities (60/40, 70/30), whereas in the second experiment one probability was used (75/25). The aim of the current study was to replicate the findings of Lockwood and colleagues (2016) who found a positive relationship between empathy and prosocial learning with the same probabilities as our second experiment. The results from both experiments revealed no significant relationship between empathy and prosocial learning. The second experiment showed that participants learned better in the selfish condition compared to the prosocial and none condition. It can be concluded that in the current study no link was found between empathy and prosocial learning, which might be explained from the differences in research design between the study of Lockwood and colleagues (2016) and the current study. There seemed to be a self-bias in learning, i.e., people learn better for themselves than for others.Show less
