This paper attempts to tie empathy to the individual's development of a cognitive sense of the other, and thus to lay the groundwork for a stage analysis of the development of altruistic motivation. The first stage proposed in this scheme is empathic distress, the involuntary experiencing of another person's painful emotional state. Empathic…

It was tentatively concluded that identification may contribute to the recognition that moral principles and not external sanctions form the basis of right and wrong, but not to the application of these principles to one's own behavior in the absence of authority. (Author)