Final answer:
Empathy contributes to both altruistic and egoistic helping behavior, with altruistic help being selfless and egoistic help motivated by personal benefit.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct interpretation of how empathy influences helping behavior is C) Both egoistic and altruistic helping. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, and it can lead to altruistic helping, where one acts out of genuine concern for the wellbeing of others without seeking personal gain. However, empathy can also lead to egoistic helping, where the helper seeks some form of personal benefit, such as feeling good about themselves or anticipating future reciprocity.
Altruistic helping is characterized by a selfless desire to aid others, even when it may come at a cost to oneself. Egoistic helping, on the other hand, suggests that while the outward behavior might appear altruistic, the motivation is ultimately self-serving, as it is tied to expecting some benefits. The ongoing debate in psychological and philosophical circles concerns the extent to which altruism is motivated by empathy alone, or whether egoistic motivations are always present even in seemingly altruistic actions.