From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishself-interestˌself-ˈinterest noun [uncountable] SELFISHwhen you only care about what is best for you, and do not care about what is best for other people His offer was motivated solely by self-interest. —self-interested adjective
Examples from the Corpus
self-interest• Too many leaders, motivated by self-interest, had failed to rise to the occasion.• Our country's role in the world must be determined by economic self-interest.• Or should we politicize the principle of altruism on the grounds that it is no more than enlightened self-interest?• They also wondered if Morris's strategic thinking was unhinged from financial self-interest.• Certain information is desired for enlightened national self-interest.• In practice, however, motives for intervention are rarely entirely pure, and an element of self-interest usually obtrudes.• The conservative is led by disposition, not unmixed with pecuniary self-interest, to adhere to the familiar and the established.• Advertising is most effective when it appeals directly to people's self-interest.• But such self-interest might prove misguided.• But there were other considerations, too, of which self-interest was only one. 