He was a mediocre, self-interested individual like so many others; except that he worked in exceptional circumstances.
They assert that human beings are fundamentally self- interested, equal and rational social atoms that together form an aggregate society of self-interested individuals.
His foreign contemporaries considered him a self-interested and dull-witted individual.
She felt that the moral revolution that brought freedom to Poland had been co-opted by self-interested individuals who reneged on their promises.
Axelrod contends that even self-interested individuals will often find ways to cooperate, because collective restraint serves both the collective and individual interests.
His analysis of experimental anomalies explores some of the limitations of the standard economic model of self-interested individuals.
The fundamental change is that human beings now look less like self-interested individuals and more like socially embedded products of family and group.
"But to turn self-interested, narcissistic individuals into free citizens takes education, acculturation and some sense of external authority," to give them enough discipline to be responsible and free.
Experimental results offer evidence against the rationally self-interested individual (sometimes called the homo economicus) concept of economic behavior, though precisely what to conclude from the evidence is controversial.
This discussion has been conducted almost entirely for self-interested rational individuals.