TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weiß, Martin
A1  - Iotzov, Vassil
A1  - Zhou, Yuqing
A1  - Hein, Grit
T1  - The bright and dark sides of egoism
T2  - Frontiers in Psychiatry
N2  - 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.
KW  - egoism
KW  - incentives
KW  - prosociality
KW  - social motives
KW  - fMRI
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-wuerzburg.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/29718
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-297183
SN  - 1664-0640
VL  - 13
ER  -