If someone steals, cheats, or commits a violent action, people might say nonchalantly: “That’s human nature coming to the surface,” or: “He showed his true face.” On the other hand, when someone shows great kindness and devotes himself tirelessly to the service of the suffering, people might say: “He’s a real saint,” implying that his or her behavior is heroic, out of the reach of ordinary mortals.

Those who argue that humans are driven by nothing but egoism will offer many examples of behavior in which an altruistic façade hides a selfish motivation. The American philosopher and naturalist of Spanish origin, George Santayana, proclaims:

In human nature generous impulses are occasional and reversible.… They form amiable interludes like tearful sentiments in a ruffian, or they are pleasant self-deceptive hypocrisies acted out, like civility to strangers because such is in society the path of least resistance. Strain the situation however, dig a little beneath the surface and you will find a ferocious, persistent, profoundly selfish man.¹

The evolutionary biologist Michael Ghiselin expressed this point of view in a more brutal way:

Given a full chance to act in his own interest, nothing but expediency will restrain him from brutalizing, from maiming, from murdering his brother, his mate, his parent, or his child. Scratch an “altruist,” and watch the “hypocrite” bleed.2

In La Rochefoucauld’s opinion, even friendship is no exception to universal selfishness:

What men term friendship is merely a partnership with a collection of reciprocal interests, and an exchange of favours—in fact it is but a trade in which self love always expects to gain something.³

ALTRUISM PUT TO THE TEST OF EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

In the previous chapters, with the help of real-life experiences, we illustrated some of the many manifestations of human kindness, even in the most challenging and dangerous situations.

To persist in attributing all of human behavior to selfishness stems from a bias, and we would be hard pressed to find even a single empirical study in the scientific literature that could confirm this prejudice. Indeed, motivations for an action can be of various kinds, some altruistic, others selfish. Nothing, however, allows us to deny the existence of real altruism.

From the 1930s to the 1970s, the term “altruism” appeared rarely in psychology books. In 1975, in his speech as president of the American Association of Psychology, Donald Campbell summarized the general thinking of the time: “Psychology and psychiatry… not only describe man as selfishly motivated, but implicitly or explicitly teach that he ought to be so.”⁴

This led the psychologist Daniel Batson to reflect that if we wanted to cut all these objections short, we must have recourse to a systematic experimental approach. He justifies his observation in this way:

It may seem tasteless to scrutinize the motives of a person who risked his or her life to shelter those trying to escape from the Holocaust, of firemen who died while directing others to safety after the attack on the World Trade Center, or of a person who pulls an injured child from shark-infested waters. But if we really want to know whether humans can be altruistically motivated, such scrutiny is necessary.5

Cases like these are at once heart-warming and inspiring. They remind us that people—and other animals—can do wonderful things for one another. We are not simply “red in tooth and claw”; there is more to us than that. This is an important reminder.

But cases like these do not provide persuasive evidence that altruism exists.… Altruism does not refer to helping, even heroic helping. Altruism refers to a particular form of motivation, motivation with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.…

We must face the possibility that even a saint or martyr may have acted with an eye to self-benefit. The list of possible self-benefits to be gained by helping is long. One may help to gain gratitude, admiration, or a good feeling about oneself. One may help to avoid censure, guilt, or shame. One may help to put oneself in line for help if needed in the future. One may help to secure a place in history or in heaven. One may help to reduce one’s own distress caused by another’s suffering. To find persuasive evidence for the existence of altruism, we shall have to move beyond dramatic cases. They simply are not up to the task.⁶

When he undertook his research, Daniel Batson knew better than anyone that most scientists attributed seemingly altruistic behavior to selfish motivations. It led him to believe that only experimental tests could produce clear conclusions about the nature of the motivations involved and invalidate the hypothesis of universal selfishness in a manner sufficiently rigorous to convince the most skeptical minds.⁷

STUDYING ALTRUISM ON A DAILY BASIS

Batson’s proposal was not to study heroic altruism in all its exceptional aspects, but to highlight altruism in daily life.

The altruistic motivation for which I wish to make a case is not the exclusive province of the hero or saint. It is neither exceptional nor unnatural. Rather, I shall argue that altruism is a motivational state that virtually all of us frequently visit.… As long as we assume that altruism, if it exists at all, is rare and unnatural, we are likely to seek it on the edges of our experience in acts of extreme self-sacrifice.… I wish to argue that it is in everyday experience that we can find the clearest evidence of the role altruism plays in human life.8

How to go about highlighting this everyday altruism? In the middle of the last century, behaviorists, led by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, decided to devote themselves exclusively to the study of observable behavior without concerning themselves with what happens in the “black box” (the inner world of subjectivity), refusing to speak of motivations, emotions, mental imagery, and even consciousness. By forbidding investigation into the domain of motivations, behaviorism could not increase our knowledge of altruism.

The observation of our external behavior alone does not allow us to discern the profound motivations that animate us. Experimental tests had to be conceived that would allow us to determine, without ambiguity, the motivations of the subjects being studied. Batson explains it this way:

For those seeking to understand human nature and the resources that might enable us to build a more humane society, the motivation counts at least as much as the behavior. We need to know not only that people (and other animals) do such wonderful things; we also need to know why.⁹

Daniel Batson and his wife Judy devoted the majority of their careers to investigating this question.

Why do people help each other? They can be moved by an authentic altruism, but they can also be obeying motivations of a selfish nature, which can be subdivided into three main groups, depending on whether the goal aimed at is to reduce a feeling of distress, to avoid punishment, or to obtain a reward.

In the first case, the fact of feeling empathy for someone who is suffering can provoke in us a disagreeable sensation. What we want then is to reduce the feeling of anxiety. Helping the other person is then one of the ways to reach our goal. Any alternative allowing us to reduce our distress—especially by avoiding being confronted with others’ suffering—would also be adequate. This is one of the most often cited reasons for helping behavior in the psychological literature of the last fifty years and in the philosophical literature of the last few centuries.

The punishment that the second type of selfish motivation wishes to avoid can be a loss of material goods and of various advantages, the deterioration of our relationship with the other person (reproach, rejection, tarnished reputation), or again the discomfort of a bad conscience (guilt, shame, or a feeling of failure).

Finally, as we have seen, the expected reward can also be of a material or relational order, stemming from others (material advantages, praise, reputation, improvement of our status, etc.) or coming from oneself (self-satisfaction, having done one’s duty, etc.).

Let’s examine a few of these selfish motivations and the way Batson and the members of his team showed that they cannot explain all human behavior.

HELPING OTHERS IN ORDER TO RELIEVE OUR OWN DISTRESS

We have seen earlier that witnessing another’s suffering has the potential to induce a feeling of discomfort and upset in us that can evolve into distress. This self-oriented vicarious distress is the emotional state that Daniel Batson defined as ‘personal distress.’ We withdraw into ourselves and are chiefly concerned with the effect of suffering and the emotions it arouses in us. In this case, whatever the mode of intervention chosen—helping the other or turning away from their suffering—the action does not stem from an altruistic motivation.

If it is impossible for us to hide from the spectacle of the other’s suffering, the assistance we offer will be, above all, motivated by the desire to relieve our own distress. If a convenient evasion presents itself and allows us to avoid confronting the other’s torments, we will generally favor this escape route.

For altruists, such a feeling of discomfort will function, initially, as an alarm that alerts them to the other’s suffering, and will make them aware of the level of distress in the situation. Thus warned, altruists will use all means available to remedy this confusion and its causes. As the American philosopher Thomas Nagel puts it, “Sympathy is the pained awareness of their [the other’s] distress as something to be relieved.”10

EXPERIMENTATION IN THE LABORATORY

If the stimulus presented by another person’s suffering is the main cause for my distress, two solutions occur to me: either I help the other get rid of his suffering (and, at the same time, put an end to my unease), or I find another way to escape this stimulus by distancing myself physically or psychologically. Psychological flight is the most effective, for if I simply turn my eyes away while remaining concerned about the other’s suffering, I still won’t have gotten rid of my own feeling of discomfort—“far from sight” remains “close to the heart.” How can one verify by experimentation if a particular individual is driven by this first selfish motivation, or if he is behaving in a truly altruistic way?

The participants in one of the experiments conceived by Daniel Batson are placed in individual cubicles and watch on the monitor a student named Elaine. The observers are told that Elaine is a student volunteering for an experiment on her performance while working in unpleasant situations. She will receive electric shocks of an intensity that does not endanger her, but is unpleasant nonetheless. She will receive these shocks at irregular intervals over a certain number of sessions, between two and ten, each lasting two minutes. The participants are also told that they will not meet Elaine in person.

There are over forty participants, who are divided by lot into two groups.¹¹ The first group is told that Elaine will do between two and ten sessions of tests, but that they are required only to observe the first two. This is the situation of “easy escape.” The second group is also told that Elaine will receive between two and ten series of electric shocks, but that they will have to observe her the entire time. This is the situation of the “difficult escape.”

At the start of each session, one of the participants, seated alone in a cubicle, sees on a closed-circuit television screen Elaine entering the cubicle next to hers. Actually it’s a video recording, as it is important that the experimental protocol be identical for all participants. Elaine is actually an actress who is not really receiving any electric shocks, but the participants don’t know this.

On the video, we also see Martha, who is in charge of the experiments, explain to Elaine the protocol for the experiment. An electrode is attached to Elaine’s arm. It is clear from Elaine’s facial expressions that the shocks are extremely painful to her, so much so that at the end of the second session, Martha interrupts the experiment and leaves the room to get her a glass of water.

During this time, another person in charge questions the observer about her emotional reactions, especially about her degree of distress, and also her degree of empathy at seeing Elaine’s painful reactions.

Then Martha asks Elaine how she feels. Elaine confesses that, when she was little, she landed on an electric fence when she fell off a horse and that after this traumatic experience, she reacts very strongly to electrical shocks, even slight ones. Martha suggests to Elaine that they stop the experiment, but Elaine replies, “I started; I want to finish. I’ll go on.… I know your experiment is important, and I want to do it.”

Martha then suggests a solution: “The person who is observing you is another psychology student; maybe she would be willing to help you out by taking your place.” With a mixture of hesitation and relief, Elaine ends up agreeing.

The person in charge of the observer explains to her, “I guess you saw, Elaine’s finding the aversive conditions pretty uncomfortable. I was wondering if maybe you’d like to help Elaine out by taking her place.… First of all, let me say that you’re under no obligation to take Elaine’s place.… If you decide to help Elaine, you’ll take her place for the last eight sessions, and she’ll observe you.”

The experimenter adds an additional choice depending on the groups: to each of the participants in the “easy escape” group, she says, “If you don’t want to take Elaine’s place and you decide to continue as an observer, you’ve finished observing the two trials, so all you need to do is answer a few questions about what you’re feeling now (anxiety, empathy, etc.) and then you’ll be free to go.”

To the participants in the “difficult escape” group, the experimenter announces, “If you decide to continue as an observer, I’ll need you to watch Elaine’s remaining eight trials.”

Among the participants whose empathic distress has been induced to be predominant over their empathic concern (half of the participants), only 18% of them choose to take Elaine’s place in the case of the “easy escape” group. But in the case of the “difficult escape” group, 64% of the participants decide to take her place, since they can’t relieve their distress by escaping.

On the other hand, on average 91% of the observers who feel strong empathy but little personal distress (the other half of the participants) take Elaine’s place when escape is easy, and 82% when escape is difficult. A compilation of data from four studies with slightly different experimental protocols shows (see graph) that on average 85% of observers with a “predominant empathic concern,” are willing to take Elaine’s place.12 The conclusion, then, is that the empathic solicitude shown by these latter participants stems from real altruism, since they are intervening for the sake of Elaine’s own welfare, and not merely out of a desire to relieve their own distress.

We can see that the people for whom empathic solicitude predominates choose to take Elaine’s place when they could easily refrain from doing so. This is not the case for people with strong empathic distress, who take Elaine’s place only when escape is difficult.

HELPING OTHERS IN ORDER TO AVOID PUNISHMENT: GUILT FEELINGS

Some people prefer to help others, even if they are not inclined to do so, because this effort is psychologically less costly for them than being prey to a feeling of guilt.

Thomas Hobbes, who constantly proclaimed that humans are motivated solely by self-preservation—which leads them systematically to privilege their own personal interests—was seen one day as he was giving a coin to a beggar. Seeing this, a friend who was familiar with the philosopher’s opinions remarked that it looked very much like a selfless deed. To which Hobbes retorted: “Not at all, I did it to relieve my bad conscience.”

We’ll consider another famous anecdote. As he was traveling in a stagecoach, President Abraham Lincoln confided to one of the passengers his conviction that anyone who does good is in the end motivated by selfishness. Scarcely had he spoken than their vehicle passed over a bridge and they heard, below, the distraught squeals of a sow whose piglets had fallen into the water. Lincoln asked the coachman to stop, leaped to the ground and pulled the piglets onto the shore. When they had started up again, his companion remarked, “Well, Abe, where’s the selfishness in this little episode?,” to which Lincoln replied, “Why, that was the very essence of selfishness. My mind wouldn’t have been at peace all day if I had gone by leaving that old sow worrying about her little ones. Don’t you realize that I did this only [to] appease my own conscience?”

We should note, though, that the mere fact of feeling distress or guilt at the idea of neglecting another person’s welfare is not in itself a sign of selfishness. If we were exclusively selfish, we would have no reason to be troubled by others’ suffering. A person in whom selfishness is preponderant will stifle the timid protestations of any guilt feelings by fabricating moral justifications for inaction, likely to be expressed in the form of sentiments like, “Well, he was asking for it”; “Those people are just getting what they deserve”; or, “Poor people just have to work harder.”

At the extreme limit, in order to rid themselves of all feeling of distress at the idea of behaving selfishly, some go so far as to invent a philosophical system based on a reversal of values. This was the case for the American thinker and novelist Ayn Rand. “Ethical selfishness,” which she called “objectivism,” asserts that altruism is immoral because it requires us to make intolerable sacrifices, and represents an unacceptable constraint imposed on our desire to live happily.14

How then can it be shown that people don’t help out simply to avoid feeling guilty? In the laboratory this time, the participants, all of them students, divided into two groups, are told that by passing a test that is given to them they can prevent another student, Julie, from receiving electric shocks. But the test is so difficult that none of the participants pass it. One of the groups is then told that the test was relatively easy (which makes them feel guilty) and the other is told that it’s not their fault, since the test was too difficult.¹⁵

The results of the experiment show that subjects induced to feel strong empathy by asking them to imagine vividly Julie’s situation remain concerned with her fate no matter the explanation given for their failure, whereas the subjects conditioned to feel little empathy are reassured as soon they are told it’s not their fault that Julie received a shock. The conclusion here is that those induced to feel empathic concern do not come to the aid of a person in need simply in order to have a good conscience.

One of the arguments that was made to Batson is that a physical escape (leaving the laboratory) does not necessarily imply a psychological escape (forgetting the person one has declined to help). The participants with strong empathy, the ones who volunteered to help, could have said to themselves: “Yes, but if I don’t help her now, I’ll feel bad later on,”¹⁶ which is a selfish motivation. So it was important to find out if, at the time of the experiment, they anticipated the distress that thinking about the person’s fate would cause later.¹⁷

Eric Stocks and his colleagues designed two experiments to provide easy psychological escape.¹⁸ In the first one, participants were told that the study was part of a trial for two highly effective memory training techniques (both actually fictitious), one designed to enhance a specific memory and one designed to eliminate it. They were told that the human memory system works very much like the hard drive of a computer and that one technique could be used to permanently “save” a particular memory, whereas a different technique would permanently “delete” it. They were also informed that previous research had shown that the success rate was 93% for “saving” memories and 97% for “deleting” memories. Questionnaires showed that most participants did firmly believe what was told to them.

To provide a target for their memory training, participants listened to the audiotape of a radio broadcast which described the plight of Katie Banks, a university student struggling to take care of her younger brother and sister after her parents were killed in an auto accident.

Half of the participants were asked to remain objective while listening to the broadcast (thus inducing a low empathic concern), while the other half were asked to imagine how Katie felt and how her plight was badly affecting her life (thus inducing high empathic concern). Within each empathic condition, high or low, half of the participants were randomly assigned to the “Deleting Memories” training, which provided an easy psychological escape, and the other half were assigned to the “Saving Memories” training, which made psychological escape less likely to succeed.

After listening to the broadcast, participants were provided an unexpected opportunity to volunteer time to help Katie in any of a variety of ways—babysitting her younger brother and sister while she attended class, helping out around the house, providing transportation, and assisting with a fund-raising event.

The results showed that individuals in whom strong empathy was induced volunteered much more to help, whether or not they believed that they would most likely forget about Katie’s plight. It thus seems that people who are sincerely concerned about someone’s fate will offer help, whether or not they expect to be bothered by a lingering feeling of guilt if they had chosen not to help.

It now had to be demonstrated that people don’t act solely in order to avoid having to justify their non-intervention to themselves either. In this case, the participants are asked to donate some of their time to help a woman in difficulty. The first group learns that the majority of the other participants volunteered to help. The second group is told that only a minority has offered to help. They understand that, if a participant doesn’t want to help, she can say to herself that, after all, she isn’t the only one in this situation, since most of the others have acted likewise. The results show that the participants who feel strong empathy for the young woman do offer their help in both instances, whereas people with weak empathy decline to help in the second instance, since it allows them to justify their inaction.

HELPING OTHERS IN ORDER TO AVOID DISAPPROVAL

If we act in an altruistic way because we’re afraid of being criticized, then the action we accomplish is subordinate to the consideration that we are counting on other people’s opinion. The personal “cost,” in terms of time and effort, of carrying out such an action for the other person seems to us not as high as the opprobrium of our fellows. That is a frequent motive for the hypocritical altruist.

How can one be sure that people aren’t helping with the sole aim of avoiding others’ censure? To test this hypothesis, a new group of participants was formed who were given an opportunity to spend some time with Janet, who is introduced to them as a woman going through a difficult time in her life, suffering from loneliness and looking for friendship. Two subgroups are formed. The first is told that the experimenter and Janet will be informed of their decision to spend time with her or not. The second is guaranteed confidentiality with regards to their decision.

Half the participants are asked to imagine Janet’s fate for a few moments, so as to arouse empathy for her; whereas the other half is simply asked to read Janet’s request in which she expresses her desire to meet people. The results show that three-quarters of the participants with a high degree of empathy agree to meet Janet, whether or not their choice is confidential. On the other hand, most subjects with weak empathy decline the offer to meet Janet when they enjoy the shield of anonymity. This supports the idea that those induced to feel empathic concern were not motivated by social acknowledgement.19

THE CALCULATED EXPECTATION OF COMPENSATION

I am doing you a favor, but I expect a favor in return, now or in the long run. This expectation can be explicit, implicit, or hidden. This kind of altruism is often observed among animals—I scratch your back and you scratch mine. Impalas have a custom of licking each other’s necks, but if one stops doing it, the other stops as well.

If the hope of benefiting from an advantage is our ultimate goal, our self-interested calculations can take on the appearance of altruism with the sole objective of inducing in the other person behavior favorable toward us, without regard for his welfare.

We know that such calculations sometimes have long-term aims. For instance, one might lavish attention on an elderly person for years in the hope of benefiting from an inheritance; one might heap favors on important officials with the prospect of ultimately drawing personal profit from it.

Another form of false altruism consists of doing someone a favor with the aim of receiving compliments or being appreciated by that person, or else making charitable donations in order to win a good reputation.

Still, nurturing the desire to establish friendly relations with others and, to do so, breaking the ice by performing a kind deed is not in itself selfish, insofar as we aren’t proposing to use the other for our own personal interests.

Praise is not pernicious in itself. If one is sincere in the beneficial actions one undertakes, the fact that these actions are being praised can constitute a welcome encouragement (provided that vanity isn’t mixed up in it); further, offering compliments is a celebration and a proof of gratitude for the good that others do. In this respect, still, a Buddhist saying enjoins prudence: “Think that the praise people give you is not addressed to you, but to the virtue embodied by your actions, and that criticism, on the other hand, is indeed addressed to you and your imperfections.”

The fact is, though, that if we carry out an action, even one useful to others, in the sole aim of being complimented and well thought of socially, this is only a simulacrum of altruism. To accomplish the good of others while still bringing ourselves a feeling of fulfillment, altruism and compassion should not be self-centered.

HELPING IN THE HOPE OF A REWARD: THE EXPERIMENTAL TEST

If we help someone in the hope of obtaining a reward, we would be less satisfied if, in the course of the action, someone else comes to his aid in our place, since then we could no longer receive the expected reward, material or social. But if we are altruistically motivated, what counts above all is that the person is helped: it doesn’t matter who does the helping. Our satisfaction would still be the same. This suggests a way to determine whether, when we feel empathic concern, we help in order to feel good about ourselves for helping.

Do people help because they get a subjective reward out of it, for instance, because it makes them feel good? Let’s return to the experiment with Katie: if the participants with strong empathy help because they feel good after having helped—an explanation often advanced—they should help less readily when they have no way of knowing whether their help is effective. The experiment showed that the participants with strong empathy, placed in this new situation, help just as much when they are told that they won’t hear any further news about the orphaned student as when they are told that they will be kept informed about her progress.

What’s more, altruists are concerned with Katie’s fate, and most of them want to receive news of her when offered the option of hearing an update on her situation a month later, even when the prognosis isn’t very good. If they helped solely to please themselves, they would not choose to expose themselves to the risk of receiving bad news.

And what if people helped in order to feel proud of being “the one who made a difference”? How can we know if a supposedly altruistic person is simply helping to experience a feeling of pride in having accomplished a kind action? It is enough to determine if the person will be just as satisfied if someone else acts in his or her place. For a true altruist, it’s the result that counts, not the satisfaction of being the hero in the situation.

This is precisely what another experiment demonstrated. The participants hear through headphones the voice of another individual of the same sex, Janet or Brian, who tells them about having to undergo an attention test in which being wrong results in an electric shock. “Wow! (nervous laugh)… Those shocks kinda hurt! I mean, they weren’t terrible and I guess I’ll go through with it, but I’m not looking forward to making mistakes on my task,” the individual adds, in order to arouse a feeling of empathy.

The participant will carry out the same task as Janet (the experiment is the same with Brian) at first, without any risk of receiving a shock, and, every time the participant succeeds, it cancels the shock Janet is supposed to receive when she is wrong. The degree of empathy the participants have for Janet is also evaluated in a questionnaire.

Then, later, this same group of participants is told that in the end, Janet will not receive any shocks, and the experimenter will be content to point out to her the mistakes she commits. The results reveal that the real altruists (the ones who showed more empathy for Janet) are just as satisfied when told that Janet won’t receive any shocks—and so will not need their help—as when told they will be able to remove her shocks. So their satisfaction is linked to the fact of knowing that Janet herself hasn’t suffered and not to the idea that it is they who spared her the pain of the shocks.20

As Daniel Batson was publishing his research, other researchers set out to find selfish explanations for the results he had observed.²¹ In response, Batson and the members of his team imagined new protocols meant to counter the objections advanced and put to the test all conceivable selfish explanations.²² After eighteen years and thirty-one experiments, conducted by himself and other psychologists and designed to test the nature of the motivation to help created by empathy, Batson came to the fundamental conclusion that, “The results of these experiments support the empathy–altruism hypothesis. None of the egoistic explanations proposed have received more than scattered support.”²³

These studies have given rise to a number of discussions,²⁴ but to this day they have not been refuted. In fact, the altruistic hypothesis offers a better explanation for behavior of mutual aid, generosity, and kindness. It is up to the proponents of universal selfishness, then, to justify their hypothesis despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As Daniel Batson concludes, “Altruism is a more pervasive and powerful force in human affairs than has been recognized. Failure to appreciate its importance has handicapped attempts to understand what motivates our action and what brings us satisfaction. It has also handicapped efforts to build better interpersonal relations and a more caring, human society. Recognizing the scope and power of altruism is not all that is needed to overcome these handicaps. But it is a crucial first step.”²⁵

This conclusion is key: If real altruism does indeed exist, if it is not the privilege of exceptional beings who are heroes or saints, and if its presence can be pointed out in countless actions of ordinary life, as shown by studies conducted by Daniel Batson, Nancy Eisenberg, Michael Tomasello, and others, we can draw important lessons. Like any other quality, altruism can be cultivated on a personal level and encouraged on a societal level. At school, it is not pointless to place more stress on cooperation, prosocial behavior, solidarity, compassion, non-discrimination, and all the attitudes that stem from altruism. It is not a sign of naïve idealism to envisage the development of an economy that would integrate the voice of care, along with the voice of reason, into its system.

Everyone knows that selfishness exists—it seems that, on this point, we don’t need to convince anyone—but when we have acknowledged that altruism, too, is inherent in human nature, we will have made a great step toward the birth of a culture that is open to the other instead of one that withdraws into purely individualist interests.

12

BEYOND IMITATIONS, TRUE ALTRUISM:

AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

AN EXAMPLE