The Heart of Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity (1994) revealed the political significance and the psychological roots of altruism and focused attention on how political choices are constrained by identity. Monroe tested the major explanations of altruism through a narrative analysis of in-depth interviews with philanthropists, Carnegie Hero Commission recipients and rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. By contrasting these cognitive portraits with those of entrepreneurs, Monroe used altruism as an analytical tool to reveal significant limitations in political theories predicated on the assumption that human nature is innately self-interested. Her empirically-grounded critique resulted in effective challenges to scholars, such as Gary Becker (Nobel laureate in Economics) and Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene), who—Monroe claimed—try to explain away altruism in order to protect disciplinary paradigms rooted in the principle of self-interest.
