The bright and dark sides of egoism

Abstract

Despite its negative reputation, egoism - the excessive concern for one's own welfare - can incite prosocial behavior. So far, however, egoism-based prosociality has received little attention. Here, we first provide an overview of the conditions under which egoism turns into a prosocial motive, review the benefits and limitations of egoism-based prosociality, and compare them with empathy-driven prosocial behavior. Second, we summarize studies investigating the neural processing of egoism-based prosocial decisions, studies investigating the neural processing of empathy-based prosocial decisions, and the small number of studies that compared the neural processing of prosocial decisions elicited by the different motives. We conclude that there is evidence for differential neural networks involved in egoism and empathy-based prosocial decisions. However, this evidence is not yet conclusive, because it is mainly based on the comparison of different experimental paradigms which may exaggerate or overshadow the effect of the different motivational states. Finally, we propose paradigms and research questions that should be tackled in future research that could help to specify how egoism can be used to enhance other prosocial behavior and motivation, and the how it could be tamed.

Keywords: egoism; fMRI; incentives; prosociality; social motives.

FIGURE 1

Neural response during prosocial decisions (1% uncorrected cluster-based inference with p < 0.001 cluster-forming threshold; k = 0). We used data (N = 31) from Iotzov et al. (21) and reanalyzed them for the purpose of this review. (A) Neural contrast between prosocial decisions in the empathy-alone vs the empathy-bonus condition and visualization of the average beta-values extracted from the clusters of activation in the bilateral anterior insula (AI; center co-ordinates left x = –36, y = 14, z = 8 and right X = 30, y = 11, z = –16) and the anterior and mid cingulate cortex (ACC/MCC; center co-ordinates x = –9, y = 14, z = 35). (B) Neural contrast between prosocial decisions in the empathy-bonus vs the empathy-alone condition and visualization of the average beta-values extracted from two clusters of activation in the temporal parietal junction (TPJ; center co-ordinates x = –45, y = –55, z = 32 and x = –36, y = –70, z = 47).