Author ORCID Identifier:

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2507-3404

Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Psychological Science

Advisor/Mentor

Eidelman, Scott

Committee Member

Bridges, Ana

Second Committee Member

Makhanova, Anastasia

Third Committee Member

Beike, Denise

Keywords

cognitive appraisals; empathy; prosocial behavior

Abstract

Empathy leads to prosocial behavior (Ding & Lu, 2016), but the factors that influence whether we feel empathetic toward someone in need are less clear. I investigated whether cognitive appraisals and empathy explained helping intentions in response to help-giving contexts. This research was informed by Weiner’s attribution-emotion-action model (1980), Batson and colleagues’ empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson et al., 1981), and appraisal theory of emotion (e.g., Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). Study 1 was exploratory and investigated the relationship between cognitive appraisals, emotions, and helping intentions in response to a help-giving scenario. Studies 2 and 3 manipulated the strength of the help-giving scenario and investigated group differences in cognitive appraisals, emotions, and helping intentions and whether there was evidence of a sequential process whereby the help-giving scenario predicted helping intentions through cognitive appraisals and empathy. Study 4 manipulated the degree to which the target or others impacted the target’s situation but was similar in purpose to Studies 2-3. In all studies, I found evidence of three overarching appraisals dimensions (labeled as target-impact, target-responsibility, other-responsibility appraisals). There were differences in how participants appraised the target’s situation, level of empathy, and intentions to help as a function of the strength of the help-giving scenario (Studies 2-3) and the degree to which the target or another impacted the situation (Study 4). Findings also suggested that individuals evaluate a help-giving context in the degree to which a situation is impactful for the target and is caused by the target and others, and that these evaluations (i.e., appraisals) influence empathy, which then influences helping intentions (or in some cases, behavior), providing support for the proposed appraisal-empathy-helping model.

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