A central goal of social psychology has been to understand and address parochial biases in altruism — favoring close others over distant ones and individuals over collectives. While earlier research emphasized empathy as a key driver of prosocial behavior, recent perspectives in psychology and philosophy argue that empathy is too biased to promote altruism toward distant others, advocating for reasoning to guide impact-maximizing altruism instead. However, studies on real-world altruists, such as living organ donors and career philanthropists, reveal that empathy remains a critical force for prosocial behavior.

Our special population research reconciles these conflicting accounts by examining the factors that promote altruistic equality and impact among exceptionally altruistic and ordinary adults alike. We find that empathy and reasoning independently and synergistically enhance prosociality, challenging the empathy-reasoning dichotomy and pointing towards a more complete theoretical integration of affect and cognition in prosocial behavior.