It is likely that kin selecting actions occur in part through some of the psychological motivations and predictors of helping described in the social psychological literature. In identical and fraternal twin studies, 28% of differences among individuals in empathic concern and 32% of personal distress were estimated to be genetic in origin (Davis, Luce, & Kraus, 1994). Cunningham (1985/1986) predicted that expectations of help, willingness to provide help, and resentment for not providing help will increase as a function of the closeness of kinship. Cialdini et al. (1997) found that as relationship closeness increased so did empathic concern for a needy other. The amount of costly helping was inversely proportional to the distance of relationship. Rushton's (1991) analysis of Batson’s altruism studies (Matthews et al., 1981) found that 71% of the variance in experienced empathy was accounted for by the genetic relationship to the target. These results strongly suggest the existence of a kin selecting influence on empathy. In studies of rats, D’Amato and Pavone (1993) reported that reunification and interaction with kin after a period of separation promotes the release of endogenous opioids at the neural level.

Research Hypotheses

A number of research hypotheses can be generated from the integration of social psychological and evolutionary theories in regard to altruistic helping behaviors. Tendencies for kin selection and reciprocal altruism, which were established in our ancestral environment, may affect the proximate psychological mediators of helping studied by social psychologists, such as empathic concern and oneness. Other hypotheses can be derived from the inclusive fitness model, which simultaneously consider the effects of kin selection and reciprocal altruism.

Hypothesis 1: The impact of kinship on the predictors of helping. Kinship should have a significant impact on the mental states that serve as proximate mediators, or predictors of helping. When the target character in a critical situation is a close relative such as a sibling, individuals are expected to experience greater levels of oneness, empathic concern, sadness, and aversive arousal from the target individual's state of need. Experimental manipulations have produced changes in feelings of empathic concern and oneness, which have lead to a greater probability of helping, and to helping at increased cost to the donor (Batson et al., 1997; Cialdini et al., 1997). It is predicted that a manipulation of kinship will produce changes in these predictors of helping, consistent with the expectation in inclusive fitness theory that close kin are more likely to be helped.

Hypothesis 2: The role of psychological experiences in helping. Sadness, aversive arousal, and empathic concern will significantly covary with oneness. Oneness will make a significant contribution to the likelihood of helping. When the relationship between oneness and the other predictors is accounted for, the impact of sadness, aversive arousal, and empathic concern on the likelihood of helping will be reduced, possibly to non-significance. Evolutionary psychologists have proposed that capacities for negative affect and low mood states have been selected by evolution, because they helped organisms cope with unfavorable situations (Nesse, 2000). These states may be adaptive because they prevent the expenditure of energy and resources on non-productive actions.

This prediction that empathic concern, sadness, and aversive arousal will not make a unique contribution to helping intentions is based on Cialdini et al.’s (1997) results, which support the primacy of self-other overlap over the other mental experiences predicting helping in three studies. Sadness and aversive arousal levels may have a complex relationship to helping intentions. If capacities for these experiences are evolutionary adaptations preserving the expenditure of resources, then higher levels would actually prevent a risky helping action. Cialdini et al.’s (1997) studies include a path model indicating that sadness, aversive arousal, and empathic concern affected helping only through their relations to perceived oneness, although there is a concern for methodological problems with this model. Cialdini et al. (1997) suggest that empathic concern is an emotional signal of oneness and that empathy per se at best leads to superficial helping. The current study will attempt a replication of Cialdini et al.’s (1997) results with a more powerful analysis. This analysis will test whether the mental experiences influencing the likelihood of helping retain this pattern, where the unique effects of empathic concern, sadness and aversive arousal are nonsignificant.

Although kinship is expected to influence the mental experiences found to predict helping, the effect of kinship may not occur entirely through the mediation of these experiences. Bargh and Chartrand (1999) propose that non-conscious mechanisms account for the majority of self-regulation. The authors provide evidence for three major forms of automatic self-regulation; automatic effects of perception on action, automatic goal pursuit, and a continual automatic evaluation of one's experience. For example, social psychologists concur that activation of stereotypes with an evaluative component is automatic, precedes conscious control, and happens whenever the discriminating features of a group are present (Tesser & Martin, 1996). It is predicted that non-conscious processes are also involved when participants are considering the helping actions described in the scenario.

Hypothesis 3: The unique contribution of kinship to the likelihood of helping. Genetic relationship will account for a significant unique contribution to the amount of variance explained in the likelihood of helping. The relationship to the target will explain a significant proportion of the variance in likelihood of helping when the proximate psychological mediators have been taken into account. This effect is predicted to occur in addition to any effect of kinship that is mediated by oneness, empathic concern, or any other significant factors.

From an evolutionary perspective, people do not have to be aware of an action's impact on reproductive fitness. An inherent tendency towards an adaptive behavior will spread regardless of the subjective mental experience (or non-experience) of the individual, as long as the action reliably occurs. Non-conscious processes may also be quicker than conscious processes in provoking action. This would be an advantage in critical situations where survival is determined in a matter of seconds. A tendency for automatically generated kin selecting actions would be selected for, as long as there is a net benefit to the genes that promote this response.

Hypothesis 4: Perceptions of reciprocity and helping. Kin selection is not the only influence for altruistic helping behaviors that has a basis in evolutionary adaptation. The theory of reciprocal altruism predicts that altruistic behaviors will also be a function of beliefs about the recipient’s likelihood of reciprocating (Trivers, 1971). It is predicted that an individual's likelihood of helping will be influenced by the expectancy that the target would help if positions in the scenario were reversed, as well as the obligation or indebtedness targets are expected to have to the donor after being helped.

It is hypothesized that the expectancy for, or estimated likelihood of, the target making an attempt to rescue the participant is based on a review of previous social interactions with the target. Although it is possible for this review to occur through “on-line” processing, where the participant considers the social information just before making a decision, it is more likely that this expectancy is an evaluation representation stored in memory, which is updated across social interactions and retrieved when a judgment is to be made (see Carlston & Smith, 1997). This hypothesis parallels the results of research on the detection of cheaters in social interactions, where an individual bases her or his cooperative tendency on the prior cooperative history of potential partners (Reeve, 1998). Participants are expected to consciously retrieve this evaluation when asked to estimate the likelihood that targets would attempt to rescue them, and subconsciously utilize this evaluation when estimating the likelihood of their own risky rescue attempts.

The construct of indebtedness, or expected obligation that targets would have towards the participant after being helped is separate from the construct of expectancy. Whereas expectancy involves a retrospective review of the social interactions with a specific target, indebtedness involves a prospective estimate of the felt social obligation to return assistance. This estimate may covary with the expectancy for target helping if positions in the scenario were reversed, because a portion of these estimates may be based in target specific information. However, expectation and indebtedness are hypothesized to be distinct cognitions rather than a single construct. It could be argued that effects of perceived indebtedness of the target is a psychologically egoistic influence on helping, because it relates to future rewards for performing a helping action. Both constructs will correlate positively with helping intentions. The higher the expectancy for helping by the target and the higher the estimated obligation after being helped, the greater the likelihood of helping is expected to be.

Although kin selection and reciprocal altruism are considered to be distinct phenomena (Trivers, 1971), there may be an interaction between cognitions related to kinship and expectations about reciprocity. Sociobiological studies have found that in situations of cooperative behavior exchange, brothers tolerate imbalances of reciprocity that would be considered exploitive and unacceptable in friendships not based on kinship (Hames, 1988). This phenomenon exhibits the combined effects of kin selection and reciprocal altruism. Because kin selecting behaviors promote inclusive fitness, the requirements for kin to reciprocate would be less than the requirements for friends to reciprocate to produce an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). In other words, the threshold of expected reciprocity to induce helping will be lower for kin than for friends. Participants are expected to see rescuing as a deed "with no strings attached" more so for kin targets than non-kin targets. This does not reduce the estimated likelihood of the target helping the participant if positions in the scenario were reversed. Even in a relatively non-kin based society such as our own, people turn to close relatives when in need, and are increasingly likely to do so the greater the imposition or demand (Hogan & Eggebeen, 1995). Cunningham (1985/1986) predicted that expectations of help, willingness to provide help, and resentment for not providing help will increase as a function of the closeness of kinship.

Hypothesis 5: Kinship, expectations for helping, and indebtedness after being helped. A member of one's kin will have a significantly lower obligation or indebtedness to the donor after being helped than a friend. This will contrast with the expectation that the target would help the participant if positions in the scenario were reversed, which will not decrease and is likely to increase for a kin target.

Hypothesis 6: Kinship moderates the effect of expectation on helping. The expectation for helping by the target if positions in the scenario were reversed and the obligation or indebtedness targets are expected to have to the donor after being helped will be stronger predictors of the likelihood of helping friends than the likelihood of helping kin. Reciprocity will have a greater influence in helping for friends than for kin, because friends do not benefit from kin selecting tendencies.

Hypothesis 7: Kinship moderates the impact of oneness and empathic concern on helping. Oneness and empathic concern (if significant) will be stronger predictors of helping for kin than for friends. Tendencies to help kin are based not only on the likelihood of future reciprocation, but also through kin selection. This implies a greater focus on the other facets of a target character, in addition to qualities of the established social relationship. Some of this focus may be revealed by the degree of influence that levels of oneness and empathic concern have on the likelihood of helping.

Auxiliary hypotheses concerning gender effects. The effects of respondent gender and target gender are not central to this experiment, however gender based differences occur for the psychological experiences indicated by constructs in the study. Previous research has shown that females report more intense emotional experiences than males, including distress, fear, sympathy, embarrassment, sadness, shame, and guilt (Brody, 1993). Although females are more intense in the verbal and facial expression of emotions than males, males are more intensely emotionally expressive through actions and behaviors than females (Brody, 1993). It has been noted that gender plays a significant role in feelings of concern and helping. For example, Trobst, Collins, and Embree (1994) found a gender effect whereby women were more likely to provide assistance to a distressed peer, and found that this effect was mediated by levels of empathy. Based on this research, female participants are expected to experience greater levels of empathy, sadness, and aversive arousal than males. Male participants are expected to have higher helping intentions than female participants, helping intentions are expected to be higher for female targets than male targets.