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Selfishness denotes an excessive or exclusive concern with oneself and as such it exceeds mere self interest or self concern. Insofar as a decision maker knowingly burdens or harms others for personal gain the decision is selfish. In contrast self-interest is more general. Self-interest is merely including one's own needs and desires in the schema of priorities and is inclusive of both cooperation and selfishness.

Selfishness is the opposite of altruism (selflessness). Look up selfishness in Wiktionary the free dictionary. Contents 1 Game theory 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading 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. See also Egotism Enlightened self-interest Ethic of reciprocity (the "Golden Rule") Generosity Little Miss Selfish Narcissism Objectivism Solipsism References Further reading A Theory of Justice (by John Rawls) Twilight of the Idols Friedrich Nietzsche Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (February 15 1990) ISBN 0140445145 The Evolution of Cooperation Robert Axelrod Basic Books ISBN 0-465-02121-2 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins (1990) second editionincludes two chapters about the evolution of cooperation ISBN 0-19-286092-5 The Virtue of Selfishness Ayn Rand ISBN 0451163931 v d eNarcissism Types Acquired situational  Aggressive  Amorous  Closet  Collective  Compensatory  Conversational  Corporate  Cross-cultural  Cultural  Destructive  Egomania  Elitist  Exhibitionist  Fanatical  Gender  Group  Healthy  Inverted  Malignant  Medical  Megalomania  Personality disorder  Phallic  Primordial  Sexual  Spiritual  Unprincipled Characteristics Arrogance  Bad boundaries  Betrayal  Boasting  Conceit  Criticism (intolerance of)  Egocentrism  Egotism  Empathy (lack of)  Entitlement (exaggerated)  Envy  Exploitative  Grandiosity  Greed  Haughtiness  Hidden agenda  Hubris  Magical thinking  Manipulative  Narcissistic abuse  Narcissistic elation  Narcissistic injury  Narcissistic mortification  Narcissistic rage  Narcissistic supply  Narcissistic withdrawal  Omnipotence  Opportunism  Perfectionism  Self-absorbed  Selfishness  Shamelessness  Superficial charm  Superiority complex  True self and false self  Vanity Defences Denial  Devaluation  Distortion  Idealization  Splitting  Projection Related articles Codependency  Control freak  Diva  Dorian Gray syndrome  Drama queen  Ego ideal  Egomania (UK TV documentary)  Empire building  God complex  History of narcissism  Messiah complex  Metrosexual  Micromanagement  Narcissism of small differences  Narcissistic leadership  Narcissistic parents  Narcissistic Personality Inventory  On Narcissism (Freud book)  Prima donna  Queen bee  Self-love  Spoiled child  Status symbol  The Culture of Narcissism (Lasch book)  Trophy wife  Victory disease  Workplace bullying This article about ethics is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v d e