altruism.

1. Concern for other people’s welfare expressed in action, especially without making personal gain the primary aim.

2. Behavior that increases another organism’s reproductive fitness at a cost to the actor’s own reproductive fitness.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• acts of altruism
• altruism toward strangers

On the page

The study examined altruism toward strangers without assuming that every helpful act had the same motive.

Her act of altruism benefited someone who could not repay the assistance.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / character / human behavior. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: characterization, motivation analysis, behavioral comparison, qualification. Disciplines: psychology, social behavior, character writing. Commonness: moderately common.