Study 1 found that self-compassion predicted greater willingness to help a hypothetical person while simultaneously reducing empathy for that person. Study 2 used a more nuanced measure of empathy and found that self-compassion was only related to feeling less personal distress in response to someone else’s emergency. In addition, in Study 2, self-compassion only predicted greater helping intentions when the target was at fault for the emergency. Lastly, both self-compassion and empathy were uniquely related to participants’ willingness to help an individual in need.