Selfishness

"Selfish" redirects here. For other uses, see Selfish (disambiguation).

Selfishness denotes an excessive (subjective) or exclusive (hypothetical) concern with oneself; and as such it exceeds mere self interest or self concern. In that it necessarily connotes a disregard for others, it is beyond the act of placing one's own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others (self interest).

Psychologist and primatologist Frans de Waal takes issue with those who equate "selfishness" with "self-serving." He argues that "Selfishness implies the intention to serve oneself, hence knowledge of what one stands to gain from a particular behavior".(2009, 13).

Selfishness is the opposite of altruism (selflessness).

Game Theory

Given two actors, oneself and someone else, there are four types of possible behavior; Selfishness, Altruism, Spite, and Cooperation. Selfishness is harming someone else in order to help oneself; Altruism is harming oneself in order to help someone else; Spite is harming oneself in order to harm someone else; Cooperation is helping oneself and helping someone else.

The implications of selfishness have inspired divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological, economic and evolutionary contexts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness