The Impact of Conditioned Empathy on Environmental Moral Reasoning

A sustainable society depends on people acting responsibly in the context of environmental decision making. Pro-environmental values, such as responsibility and altruism, are directly linked to pro-environmental behavior. Pro-environmental values are associated with moral reasoning, therefore, promoting pro-environmental moral reasoning can foster environmental decision-making and a more sustainable world. Previous research has shown that empathy can explain environmental behavior and norms, and can be a lever for moral reasoning. There are two basic types of environmental moral reasoning: 1) anthropocentric, or humankind being the most important element, characterized by nature being valuable for human benefit; and 2) ecocentric, or nature being the most important element, characterized by nature having its own inherent value. This study tested whether promoting high levels of empathy increased the number of moral arguments made for pro-environmental behavior. In addition, it explored whether directing empathy towards a human increased anthropocentric moral reasoning versus whether directing empathy towards a non-human subject increased ecocentric moral reasoning.

Environmental psychologists acknowledge a link exists between empathy—the ability to understand the feelings of another person or being—and environmental values, attitudes, and behavior. However, there is limited research on how differences in empathy (e.g., high/low levels of empathy, the subject of empathetic feelings) impact moral reasoning and environmental attitudes and behaviors. Past research has shown that adopting another person or animal's perspective creates an internal response of empathy and is linked to an increase in “helping” behaviors, such as pro-environmental behaviors. Past studies have also shown that front-of-mind moral stimulus impacts short-term moral arguments—individuals are less likely to demonstrate ecocentric attitudes and behaviors if human-centric moral stimuli interferes.

Students enrolled in a social psychology course at the Autónoma University in Madrid, Spain, received course credit for participating in the study. The author randomly assigned 126 students (71 women, 55 men, average age of 21) to 5 groups. One group was the control group (26 participants), and the 4 other groups included 25 participants each. The study utilized a computer presentation to exhibit a fictional news story. The story's content was the same but the subject of the story was either a young man or a vulture. Before viewing the story, study participants were either instructed to 1) take the perspective of the subject of the story (high empathy conditioning) or 2) remain objective (low empathy conditioning). After viewing the story, participants were asked to respond to 4 environmental dilemmas in a written survey. The control group did not view the news story or receive any empathy conditioning, but still responded to the environmental dilemmas. The author categorized the responses as anthropocentric, ecocentric, or nonenvironmental moral arguments, and looked for trends in the data.

The data demonstrated that promoting high empathy increased the number of moral arguments made in response to environmental dilemmas. The results also showed that directing empathy towards a human resulted in an increase in anthropocentric moral arguments and directing empathy towards a vulture resulted in an increase in ecocentric moral arguments. The total number of moral arguments was higher in the high empathy group compared to the low empathy group.

When the subject of story was a vulture, the group conditioned for high empathy made significantly more ecocentric moral arguments in comparison to the low empathy and control groups. The author added that this result was especially interesting because vultures are a distant animal to humans in a genetic and evolutionary sense, and it is an animal that tends to have negative connotations. When the subject of the story was human, the group conditioned for high empathy made more anthropocentric arguments than the low empathy and control groups.

The author identified a few limitations of this study. Participants in the high empathy group with a vulture as the story subject may have found it difficult to imagine the perspective of a vulture. The study participants were urban university students, who may have had different responses than other sample demographics. Also, the increases in anthropocentric and ecocentric moral reasoning due to empathy conditioning were likely only short-term changes in the participant's value systems.

The author recommended using empathy and altruism as tools to influence environmental moral reasoning. In environmental campaigns, practitioners should be mindful of how conditioning high empathy can increase moral reasoning. For instance, directing empathy towards a human can increase anthropocentric reasoning while directing empathy towards an animal can increase ecocentric values. Practitioners should also take into account front-of-mind moral stimulus—even if people generally have ecocentric values, when presented with human-subject empathy inducing content, their moral reasoning may become more anthropocentric.