Think of our world as a comic book, and empathy-altruism hypothesis is our superhero! Invented by C Daniel Batson, he suggests people help others not because of what they might gain (which would be very supervillain-like) but out of genuine concern for others - the true superhero's way!

This is the bad guy who believes that people only help others when the benefits outweigh the costs. It's like Batman saving Gotham only if he gets a chocolate chip cookie. But Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis defies this. He suggests true superheroes (people with high empathy) will help others regardless of their cookie rewards.

Here comes a twist! In research, Batson faced a challenge - differentiating between superhero helping (altruistic) and supervillain helping (egoistic). People like being superheroes, so they often report their actions as altruistic. But are they really?

To solve this mystery, Batson designed the "empathy escape" experiment. Imagine it like a video game. He created two conditions: high empathy and low empathy, manipulated through perceived similarity with a victim. Then, he added escape routes - some easy and some hard to find. The idea was to see who helps and under what conditions.