Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Selfishness: A Multidisciplinary Exploration examines the nature of selfishness; its causes, effects, costs and benefits, evolution in our species, and development in individuals; and how it is best dealt with. It harvests knowledge from laypeople and academics in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, especially psychology and evolutionary biology. It explores a set of basic questions pertaining to what it means to be selfish, whether there are different kinds of selfishness, whether selfishness is a personality trait, whether it is ethical or unethical to be selfish, whether selfishness is good for us or bad for us, what causes us to be selfish, whether we are selfish by nature, whether selfishness stems from primitive instincts, how cultural norms pertaining to selfishness evolve, why some of us are more selfish than others, whether children become less selfish as they develop, whether we as a species are becoming less selfish as we evolve, and how we should deal with selfish people.</jats:p>