Human beings possess the capacity to engage in prosocial behavior. Whether it's donating to a charity or feeling empathy and concern for others. However, for many it has not been clear to identify what motivates people to perform a prosocial act. Do humans ever truly act out of concern for the well-being of others, or are human behaviors motivated by self-interest and selfishness? Such questions have been the foundation of a key debate among social scientists and philosophers. Psychologists often study prosocial behavior by examining the motivations that encourage it. One of the most important distinctions is between prosocial behavior that involves selfish motivations and behavior motivated by altruism. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get original essay Comte (1851) considered both altruism and selfishness as separate motives for prosociality. While he did not deny that behavior could be selfishly motivated, he believed that some social behavior was an expression of people's desire to help others and to increase the well-being of others rather than self-interest. The empathy-altruism hypothesis can be used to support this statement because it challenges the assumption that, ultimately, all behaviors are performed for self-interest and self-benefit. It states that feelings of empathy for another person produce an altruistic motivation to increase that person's well-being. Evidence for the empathy-altruism hypothesis has been provided by studies, over several decades, that support the idea that feeling empathy towards others will lead to greater helping of that person. However, observing an empathic helping relationship does not tell us what the nature of the underlying motivation is. Increasing another person's well-being may be the goal, but it is sought as a means to gain personal benefit. Therefore, it can be argued that the motivation behind prosocial behavior is actually selfish. Evidence is also supported by the prisoner's dilemma where altruism was induced by empathy. 60 college women were placed in a prisoner's dilemma in a process through which empathy for another person was influenced and controlled. The results showed that, regardless of how the dilemma was formed, whether as a social exchange or as a commercial transaction, cooperation between women was greater for those who were induced to feel empathy towards others compared to those who were induced not to. feel empathy. While this has provided some support for the claim that prosocial behavior is altruistically motivated, there are also methodological challenges that can be applied to the prisoner's dilemma. First, the sample used in this study involves only 60 undergraduate women, which limits the research findings as the sample size is too small to represent a larger population. Furthermore, the research only used female university students, this limits their findings as they cannot be generalized to males, therefore it is unable to explain that behavior is motivated by altruism in both males and females. The empathy-altruism hypothesis has been challenged, each focusing on the possibility that prosocial behavior is driven by selfish, self-motivated concerns rather than altruistic motivations. It is argued that another possibility for prosocial behavior could be that those who tend to try:.