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 […]

Timothy Jackson, professor of Christian ethics at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, focuses on moral philosophy and theology, especially the relationship between secular and Christian conceptions of goodness, justice and mercy. He has written about altruism.

Allan Luks is former executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters in New York City and former director of the Institute for the Advancement of Health. He is an author of The Healing Power of Doing Good (Fawcett Columbine, 1992) and coined the phrase “helper’s high” in Psychology Today to describe feelings of well-being reported by individuals […]