Altruistic Behavior, Egoistic Choice

Altruism can be loosely defined as “a willingness to act in the consideration of the interests of other persons, without the need of ulterior motives” (Nagel 1970, p79). The opposite of altruism is egoism, that is, when the ultimate goal of people’s behaviors is to improve one’s own welfare. The egoistic motive and the altruistic motive have usually been pitched against each other as two competing motives, especially in the debate about whether many seemingly altruistic behaviors are actually driven by ulterior motives to serve egoistic purposes (see Andreoni, Harbaugh, & Versterlund 2008 for review). Some recent novel empirical findings suggest the relationship between egoistic and altruistic motives can be more complex than presumed, especially when the two motives are juxtaposed. Feiler, Tost and Grant (2012), for example, found that people donate less when the potential to benefit others and oneself were both emphasized in a donation request, than when only one potential benefit was emphasized. Andreoni, Rao & Trachtman (2011) found that when Salvation Army solicitors standing at different entrances of a shopping mall explicitly asked each customer for donation, total donation increased by a large margin, but more people avoided the asking solicitors by entering and exiting from alternative entrances. These line of findings seem to suggest that altruistic and egoistic seeming behaviors may arise in the same setting, in different forms.