Thomas Jay Oord is professor of theology and philosophy at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho, and works with the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love. He wrote Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being (Templeton Press, 2004).

Samuel Oliner is emeritus professor of sociology and director of the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. Oliner co-founded the institute in 1982 to study altruism and seek ways to enhance altruism and prosocial behavior in society. A native of Poland, Oliner was rescued by a non-Jewish family at age […]

University of California at Los Angeles anthropology professor Joan Silk published a study of chimpanzees in the Oct. 27, 2005, Nature that showed that the chimps were motivated to obtain rewards for themselves but not to provide rewards for other group members. In other words, they did not show altruistic behavior, contrary to expectations raised […]

Ruben Habito is a professor of world religions and spirituality at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is co-editor of The Practice of Altruism: Caring and Religion in a Global Perspective. He specializes in Buddhism and wrote a chapter in Altruism in World Religions.

Dan Batson is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He has studied empathy as a possible source of altruistic motivation and the psychological implications of the egoism-altruism relationship. He has also researched other sources of positive social motivation, such as collectivism and principalism. He wrote The Altruism Question: Toward a […]

Lynn Underwood has taught philosophy at Western Michigan University and is former vice president for health research at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Mich., where she led research initiatives in altruism and compassionate love. She co-edited Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2002). She has done research on compassionate love, and works […]

Stephen Jacobs is professor of religious studies and chairman of Judaic studies at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He can comment on altruism as a scholar of modern Jewish thought and from a post-Holocaust perspective.

David Schroeder is a professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock who has explored whether the motivations for helping other are egoistic or altruistic. He co-wrote The Psychology of Helping and Altruism: Problems and Puzzles (McGraw Hill, 1995).

Gregory Berns, Distinguished Professor of Neuroeconomics and Director of the Center for Neuropolicy Professor in Economics Department at Emory University, published results of a brain imaging study that indicated that altruistic behavior has a biological basis. Published in the journal Neuron in July 2002, the study shows that social cooperation activates parts of the brain related to […]