We are many experts in psychology who affirm that the human being must first love himself to be able to adequately love others. However, taking care of oneself, on many occasions, is confused with a selfish idea, with a negative connotation and this is not always the case, since there are different ways of understanding and living selfishness.
Keep reading this Psychology-Online article and you will know what is egoism in psychology, its definition, types and some phrases from different authors that will help you understand it better.
The concept comes from ego, through which a person becomes aware of their own identity and is recognized as an "I". The dictionary defines the word egotism as: "excessive appreciation that a person has for himself and that makes him pay undue attention to his own interest, without worrying about that of others "(Real Academia Spanish).
Psychological selfishness talks about self-interested human behavior and not really altruistic.
Why do we look for a partner? Why do we want to be parents? Why do we want to have friends? Why do we help the people around us? If you analyze it, behind your great motivations we find your own benefit, no matter how small.
Let's look at the different types of egoism in psychology:
1. Egocentric selfishness
It is the selfishness that defines the dictionary, an attitude that distances you from others, makes you lose your social value and ends up isolating you emotionally from everyone. Person just look for herself using others based on their interest and benefit without taking into account how their actions may affect others. The ego is so big that the person is unable to empathize with whom you interact. Those who are selfish "egocentric" build a victimizing personality and tend to complain and blame others when something does not go as expected. He accuses you of being selfish when you look out for your own interests because what he wants is for you to see for his own.
2. Conscious or neutral selfishness
It is important to dedicate some time each day to give ourselves what we need and thus maintain emotional balance. We need to think about ourselves to survive physically and emotionally. I affirm, again, that the human being must love yourself first to be able to properly love others. Through this conscious selfishness, we improve our self-esteem strengthening self-confidence. Neutral selfishness benefits oneself and does not harm others, although those whom one loves tends to benefit indirectly as well.
3. Altruistic selfishness
This selfishness consists of doing something that we like to do and that, in addition, brings profit for other people. We are altruistic because doing good things makes us feel good. It is typical of a empathic person, which without ceasing to seek its well-being, tries that when it reaches it it does not affect others in a negative way. She is able to let others get a benefit first when she feels they need it more than she does.
As a conclusion, we can understand that depending on how egoism is looked at, we can understand it as a more or less negative attitude, with different degrees of concern for their own well-being and alien.
In the following article, we show good tips to overcome selfishness in our daily life.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Selfishness in psychology: definition, types and phrases, we recommend that you enter our category of Personality.
