This seems to me less like an observable phenomenon and more an excuse to extend an argument that unselfish people are actually just selfish people, and therefore "selfish" people aren't real.

Sorry if I'm reading too much into it, but this reads like the preamble to at least 10 articles people have handed to me in defense of Ayn Rand.

I didn't want to be too negative. My point is that it's really hard to distinguish between truly unselfish behavior and non-assertiveness or passive-aggressive behavior. Selfish behavior seems easier to identify.

Why is that observation important to the discussion at hand?

Because people who think of themselves as unselfish but are just passive may get depressed because they never get their way. For example people may be unhappy with their pay but are afraid to ask for more.

That's not even remotely with the subject of the conversation was. It's not the subject or germane to the paper linked at hand. Could we please not politicize this?

Just curious: What was the discussion about?

Actually, yes, this distinction of selfish versus unselfish is sooo pre-high school.

It doesn't make terribly much sense to imagine that people can be divided into two groups, "selfish" and "unselfish".

Actually no, even by the somewhat suspect rules laid out in evolutionary biology the concept of altruism stands out as valuable separate from any immediate gratification in many species.

If your sources are pretty high school why should anyone here listen to them?

Maybe not everything is an exercise in pushing an economic ideology.

We are all evolved already so we are all altruist under the hood, it's already there under the hood. Any non-psychopatic person will show altruism when in applicable context.

> Actually, yes, this distinction of selfish versus unselfish is sooo pre-high school.

If your reasoning here is, that every person just does what feels good for them and therefore everyone is just "selfish", then that certainly isn't the whole picture why people do what they do.

There're certainly people doing things because they feel right, but it might not be a pleasure for them doing it.

Reducing everything to just being selfish doesn't make that much sense.

What you have described is three quarters, let me fill this for you:

Person wishing to do the right thing and doing it ("unselfish")

Person doing the right thing against their wishes ("righteous")

Person wishing to do the right thing but not doing it (akrasia, you missed this one)

Person not doing the right thing and not wishing so ("selfish")

It's all about image of oneself and the experience of being burned by your actions, and every person out there shows plenty of behavior from all four quarters. So dividing people doesn't makes sense. Now, dividing actions does.

> So dividing people doesn't makes sense.

It seems it's more about you thinking that someone else does this here or in the study.

> Now, dividing actions does.

But the study is about actions and how people feel afterwards. It isn't about unselfish people, but about unselfish actions of people.

Sure, if they call the group 'unselfish people' it's not quite right, but that's not the point of the study.

> So dividing people doesn't make sense.

Exceeeept when you're doing it arbitrarily to make a point?