Selfish people share these 6 traits

Do you know any particularly selfish person? Selfishness is an attitude towards life that we find difficult to recognize in ourselves.

Selfishness: we only perceive it in others

We have all met very selfish people in our lives, but it is much more difficult to detect these types of habits and attitudes in oneself. We prefer to believe that if we ever act like this, it is because we have not realized it or we try to justify it with any excuse that does not make us feel bad.

If you want to be able to identify the traits, behaviors and attitudes that selfish people have, we suggest that you keep reading. We offer you six main characteristics of people who frequently act selfishly.

• Related article: "Egocentric Personality: 15 Characteristic Traits"

Selfish people: these seven attitudes give them away

We all know what it means to be selfish: look only for your own benefit, and rarely lift a finger for others if not because we are going to get compensation.

The antonym of egoism, its opposite, is the

altruism, and is defined by being those selfless attitudes and behaviors that we do to help someone. Throughout this article we are going to know some characteristics that define selfish people; behaviors and daily habits that can warn us that we will only get their help if they get something in exchange for it.

1. They take advantage of the situation to benefit

It is quite common that they try to obtain some kind of benefit from everyday situations. They are small details that can go unnoticed, such as paying less at a dinner with friends, always riding in someone's car or cheating on an exam.

Selfish people They tend to look for small daily nooks to take advantage of in a somewhat illegitimate way. We have all acted like this on occasion, and it is also nothing to worry about, but there are some individuals who exceed these types of attitudes and are experts in getting results from multiple situations.

2. They are unlikely to share

If in the point 1 We were talking about the ability of selfish people to take advantage of certain daily situations, in this second point we highlight their little propensity to share.

For example, when a friend eventually doesn't have money with him to pay for a movie ticket, they are very reluctant to offer to pay for them. The same thing happens with all material (and sometimes intangible) possessions: they do not like to share them with third parties, they prefer to enjoy them alone. They give great importance to exclusivity, to feeling good for being the only ones who can enjoy a new comic, a video game, a book, a car ...

3. They take the principle of reciprocity to the extreme

... Or we could say that they are a bit spiteful. If when it is his birthday he invites you to his party and you do not give him any gift, it will surely not tell you anything but it will point your name on the blacklist, and forget about receiving any details from him in the future.

This people they tend to have a conception of human relations with certain economic schemes: they only give something if they are going to receive something in return. They do not usually have details in a disinterested way.

4. They rarely come off the "last issue"

If you ask a selfish individual for some gum or some water that they have left in a bottle... forget about giving it to you. They will find an excuse to reserve those few stocks for themselves, they will not risk running out of them.

For this they may resort from more or less credible justifications to lies. For example, it is quite common that, if you ask them for a gum and they only have one left, they assure you that they have already run out.

5. They are afraid to lend anything

If you borrow something from a selfish person, it is quite likely that they will not give it to you unless there is a compelling reason to do so (For example, that he can ask you for something in return, or that he reserves the favor to use it in the future).

They think that lending that pen, book, record... will mean the possibility that he will not return to his hands. And they may even think with an economic criterion "Why am I going to lend it if not in exchange for something?".

6. They apply the law of least cost

This type of persons They are only willing to pick up a friend with their car if he or she lives nearby, or if the site is coming your way. They don't contemplate going off course to do someone a favor.

In short, selfish people apply a criterion of efficiency to their social life, which can be unpleasant, too cold and calculating and unfriendly. Luckily, we are all in time to detect if we are a little selfish and start thinking differently, with principles and attitudes that help us connect with others and promote empathy.