altruism – the willingness of some to sacrifice themselves for others – is widespread in social animals. as explained above, the next generation can only come from those who survive and reproduce. some biologists have thought that this meant altruism could not evolve by the normal process of selection. instead a process called "group selection" was proposed. group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the alleles' effect on the fitness of individuals within that group.