Altruistic, Not Reputational Concerns, Drive Human Prosociality, Values, and Aspirations Across the World

Are humans primarily driven by altruism or self-interest? To address this longstanding debate, we conducted a large-scale, cross-cultural investigation of altruistic versus egoistic motivation across three key domains: legacy motives, life aspirations, and personal values. Analyzing data from over 900,000 participants across more than 100 countries, we consistently found that altruistic motivations (i.e., impact legacy, intrinsic aspirations, and self-transcendence values) were more strongly endorsed than egoistic counterparts. This pattern held across diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts, although notable variation emerged across nations. Effect sizes were especially pronounced among individuals known for extreme altruism (e.g., effective altruists, organ donors), suggesting that these effects are unlikely to be driven by social desirability alone given the validated, real-world nature of these populations’ altruistic behaviors. Our findings challenge the assumption that prosocial concern is primarily driven by reputational concerns and suggest instead a widespread and deeply held preference for other-oriented motivations. By integrating motivational constructs with cross-cultural data, this research advances theoretical understanding of human prosocial concern and underscores the universality, and variability, of altruistic inclination across global populations.