Developing Alternatives to Self-Interest (DASI)

Social science research and theory assume that self-interest motivates human behavior--that humans are ultimately and inevitably motivated to satisfy their own wants and needs, heedless of the needs of others or the larger good. Despite this common ground, specific assumptions about the nature of self-interest vary across the social science disciplines. Thus, the concept of self-interest is, itself, complex, and divergent conceptions of self-interest across disciplines deserve consideration.

Because some types human behavior are difficult to explain from a self-interested view, numerous critiques of the self-interest paradigm have emerged in the social and behavioral sciences. Social scientists have focused less attention to developing alternative ways to characterize human behavior that move beyond mere self-interest.

Recently social scientists, led by researchers at the University of Michigan, have begun to articulate a promising new interdisciplinary approach to human behavior. This approach suggests that humans, as well as other mammalian species, have two evolved motivational systems, one that energizes self-interested behavior, and one that energizes other-interested behavior.

The Developing Alternatives to Self-Interest project brings together researchers from multiple disciplines in order to promote theory and research that point beyond rational self-interest and psychological hedonism as the guiding framework in the social and behavioral sciences. The interdisciplinary nature of this endeavor poses special opportunities and challenges.

Despite the challenges, we think this initiative is timely. To a greater extent than ever before in human history, people and societies are interdependent parts of a human and biological ecology in which the physical, social, and economic well-being of individuals, groups, and even species in one part of the world affects the well-being of people in other areas of the world. Understanding the causes, consequences, and processes of other-focused motivation may provide a key to solving some of the most pressing issues of our time.

A weekly speaker and seminar series for faculty and graduate students was held during the winter of 2007. The series spawned the creation of a wiki-type electronic annotated bibliography as a tool for linking interested academics to a wider network of scholarship on "alternatives" to the dominant self-interest paradigm. Also a series of monthly meetings were held in late 2007 and early 2008. These meetings allowed the participants to reflect upon what was learned and to chart new courses of research to pursue. Further, in time a brand new project emerged. See the current CARSS supported project -- Human Caregiving.

Contact: Jennifer Crocker; Stephanie Brown