Yes I think you're right. Culture and upbringing are very important factors. What remains is that the potential of human empathy is incredible. I don't think empathy needs a reward per se, I think the positive feeling you describe is enough reward, again it's not to be underestimated. I am personally volunteering one day per week at my local homeless shelter, while I work a paid job 4 days per week at a mental hospital as a nurse. I don't want to be paid for the homeless shelter, I am fine with doing it voluntarily, I specifically wanted to do something voluntarily just to proof to myself that I don't maximize my income, to be sure I don't play the money game. But your point about how it is not only unrewarding financially but the reverse: it can even be a detriment to success, that's very true. Before my nursing school I got a degree in marketing & management (which made me incredibly unhappy). I'm very glad I chose to go do something else, because I feel like my contribution to society is far bigger now than it ever could have been as a marketeer. Despite that I would've made a lot more money as a marketeer. Free market capitalism is amoral when it comes what to contributing to ~~society~~ the market, if your job is to sell addicting products to people, that destroy their lives, but it makes you a decent profit, then you'll be rewarded for it. Far more so than most essential workers would ever earn. That combined with money not being just money (power), but also status: we celebrate wealth. Wealthy equals good. We don't look at how one earned his wealth, we just look at the wealth and are in awe. Obviously we are giving people the wrong incentives.