No more 'heart vs. head:' New study shows how empathy and reasoning both inspire us to help others

Perhaps most importantly, researchers need to rethink how altruism is understood. Psychology lacks a clear framework for explaining how empathy and reasoning work together, for whom they work best, and the situations where they come apart.

Developing that kind of model would reshape how we think about helping — when helping expands, when it stalls, and why.

While such core questions remain, the present findings offer reason for optimism.

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The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

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This article was written by Kyle Fiore Law and Stylianos Syropoulos from Arizona State Universty, Brendan Bo O'Connor from University at Albany, State University of New York, and was originally published on The Conversation.

Header Image by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash