What does selfishness lead to

If we focus on developing kindness without developing insight into the causes of selfishness, there is a risk this could become another form of self-obsession e. It contains a hidden image of a skull that only becomes fully noticeable when you stand to the right-hand side of the canvas.

This optical illusion reminds me of my own selfishness — it has always been there, but I only noticed it clearly when I viewed my life from a certain perspective.

It is only in recent years that I have been able to recognize the impact of selfishness in my own life. This self-centeredness has been there since my earliest memories. It has destroyed relationships, and it is one of the reasons I became addicted to alcohol. This ruthlessness in seeking my own happiness prevented me from achieving that happiness, and it got me into all types of trouble. It is a pity it took me so long to see this. Prior to this recognition of my own self-centeredness, I only saw myself as a victim of circumstances.

Sure, I had done some bad stuff, but ultimately, this was in response to the unfair things that had happened to me. I suspect all of us can look at our lives from two perspectives. We can hold onto a story where we are purely the victim of circumstances, or our genes, and any bad decisions we have made is in response to this unfairness.

There is also another perspective where our own selfishness has at least contributed to much of the bad stuff that has happened to us. So, which perspective is correct? Are we the victims or the villains? My guess is the answer is somewhere in the middle. Practically speaking though, seeing ourselves as the victim just leaves us feeling powerless and at the mercy of fate. It is only if our own actions are contributing to our suffering that we can hope for a better future.

I remember one of my cousins at age 7 having a complete meltdown because he was denied a Curly Wurly. He threatened to run away, and even went so far as to pack his favorite toys in bag for the journey. He calmed down of course, and we were all able to laugh about it. Here are some of the ways selfishness ruins everything:. We can start to think of people in terms of what they can do for us rather than enjoying unconditional friendships.

Self-centeredness can damage our reputation and lead to loneliness. Find somewhere comfortable to sit and spend about a minute with your attention on physical sensations in the body e.

I want you now to imagine a future where you are a kinder less self-absorbed person — not only kinder to other people but also to yourself. Spend a couple of minutes with this kinder you. Are you happy? Is this someone you would like to be? Is this someone who is likely to be lost in addiction? More self-absorbed. Spend a couple of minutes with this more selfish you.

Which one of these two futures appeals to you most? I remember being in rehab during the nineties and being told by my counsellor that I was self-obsessed. I felt so angry at her for saying this, even though deep down I could see the truth in it. She managed to convince me to do some volunteer work with young people with severe learning difficulties.

Finally, as many parents tell their children when learning about integrity, act as if someone is watching. Selfish behaviors generally decrease in the presence of others due to the social value of such behaviors, therefore, holding yourself to the same standards which you would if you were in the presence of others can help prompt a generous decision in place of a selfish one.

LIFE is a self-development app that teaches 9 core topics, or missions, to help you work towards the best version of yourself. The second Mission is all about self-awareness , cultivating an understanding of how you are perceived by others and becoming aware of how your actions may affect them. Finally, in Mission 9, you can hone your leadership skills and communication skills. Brethel-Haurwitz, K.

Causal role of the right temporoparietal junction in selfishness depends on the social context. Calvo P.

Springer, Cham. Chen, F. Biased sequential sampling underlies the effects of time pressure and delay in social decision making. Nat Commun 9 , doi: 0. Crocker, J. Annual Review of Psychology, 68 1 , Diebels, K. Review of General Psychology, 22 4 , — Guazzini, A. Quantifying fairness to overcome selfishness: A behavioural model to describe the evolution and stabilization of inter-group bias using the Ultimatum Game.

Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 16 5 , Kashirskya, I. Ideas about altruism and selfishness in students with different levels of empathy. Innovative Technologies in Science and Education, 3S.

Kaufman, S. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, LaBelle, O. Mazzolini, A. Generosity, selfishness and exploitation as optimal greedy strategies for resource sharing.

Journal of Theoretical Biology, , There may be a good and logical foundation for doctrines of loyalty and sympathetic understanding after all. From its beginnings nine years ago as a report published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution on a computer tournament among diverse strategies, the argument grew to become a highly successful article in Science magazine it won the Newcomb Cleveland prize in , then a book published to wide acclaim in , then a paperback issued a year later.

Since then, it has been extensively discussed, taught in business schools, employed in arms limitation talks, consulted by labor negotiators. In this situation, two prisoners are accused of a crime, which they did in fact commit. The jailers structure the payoffs to encourage each prisoner to confess: if neither prisoner confesses, both are given light jail sentences of, say, one year.

If one prisoner confesses while the other remains silent, the first goes free while the other receives a heavy sentence of, say, ten years. If both prisoners confess, both get the heavy sentence, but with time off for good behavior—say, five years. Neither one knows what the other is going to do.

So the question is, why would either ever stand pat and say nothing? How is it that cooperation ever gets started? The answer, it turns out, lies in repeated play. In these circumstances, a strategy called Tit for Tat quickly emerged: cooperate on the first move, then follow suit on each successive move; cooperate if your partner cooperates, defect if he defects, at least until the end of the game is in sight then defect no matter what. What Axelrod forcefully contributed was the much-prized quality of robustness.

He showed that Tit for Tat players in reiterated games would find each other and accumulate higher scores than meanies who always defected. He demonstrated how clusters of Tit for Tat players might invade an evolutionary game and win. He generalized the strategy and found that Tit for Tat worked well against a wide range of counterstrategies simulated on computers as well as in biological systems from bacteria to the most complex species.

He published his computer tournament results and proofs of his theoretical propositions. Businesses really did cooperate, extending each other reciprocal credit, until liquidation loomed. Then trust fell apart, and even old associates vied with each other to see who could file the quickest writs. In a recent survey of the work since the publication of his book, Axelrod wrote that cooperation based on reciprocity had been noted in everything from vampire bats to vervet monkeys to stickleback fish, and that advice based on the theory had been offered for problems in breaches of contract, child custody arrangements, superpower negotiations, and international trade.

The study of cooperation was well established and growing, Axelrod said; cooperative behavior could be taught. For humanists, however, and those scientists who are troubled by the conviction that there is more to human nature than the purely selfish, even this description of cooperation through reciprocity is disappointing.

There is no divided loyalty here, no painful choice, just a simple calculation. Travelers still leave the requisite tip in restaurants in cities to which they will never return. Citizens vote in elections even though they know that their vote is extremely unlikely to make a difference. People help strangers in trouble. They willingly bear costs in the name of fair play.

They remain married in situations in which it would clearly pay to cut and run. A highly imaginative approach for dealing with such instances, and for extending economics to the realm of the emotions in general, is proposed in a new book by Robert H. Frank, a Cornell University professor, spent ten years performing the comparatively humdrum duties of a teacher before going to Washington, D. When he returned to Cornell, a couple of remarkable books tumbled out, sufficient to place Frank on leading lists of the half-dozen most interesting mid-life economists working in the United States today.

Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status is an exploration of status fairly bursting with novel ideas about why people tend to organize themselves into leagues. It is the kind of book that any reader, perhaps especially readers of this magazine, can pick up and browse with pleasure. Now, with Passions Within Reason, Frank has written a somewhat tighter and more demanding book.

But it is the one that is destined to help change the way we think about the basis of ethical behavior. They exist, he says. We see a homeless person, we are moved to pity; we see a child in danger, we are moved to help; we see a sterling baseball play, we are stirred and excited; we imagine our mate with another person, we burn with jealously and rage; we contemplate stealing from an unattended change box, we blush with shame.

Thinking as an evolutionist, Frank asks, what useful purpose might these feelings serve? The answer he gives is that the highly useful function of the emotions is precisely to short-circuit narrowly self-interested behavior, because honest and helpful people are those whom everyone wants for partners, and because nobody messes with people who get angry when they are crossed.

If you want people to trust you, it helps, not hurts, to blush when you tell a lie. If you want people not to take advantage of you, it helps, not hurts, to be known as someone who will fly into an irrational rage if you are cheated.

The self-interest model counsels that opportunists have every reason to break the rules when they think no one is looking.