Disentangling greed and self-interest

Abstract

Greed combines dissatisfaction with one’s current state of affairs with an unsatisfiable desire for more. It motivates people to acquire more and has many societal implications. Various scholars have argued that greed is associated with, or even equated to the motive of self-interest. And hence, they have also argued that greed is associated negatively with other-interest (some definitions even suggest that greed produces negative externalities and harm-to-others). To date, however, these ideas have not been scrutinized empirically. In this article we report three survey studies (N₁ = 145, N₂ = 302, and N₃ = 346) that adopted an individual differences perspective to investigate how dispositional greed, self-interest, and other-interest are related to each other. The results from correlational analyses and confirmatory factor analyses indicate that greed is distinct from self-interest, and from other-interest. The results also reveal that greed and self-interest are differentially related to various distinct behavioral inclinations. The current findings corroborate recent research on greed and adds to the understanding of this motivational construct and the potential harm it can inflict on others.