Altruism as I see it is doing something for no recognition or reward from others and simply for the joy of giving as I see it.
Nuns are exempt as they are doing it for god, or for a place in heaven.
This is the view of the person conducting a study into altruism, I share their view it seems to be called 'impure' altruism as that suggests there is some enjoyment from the act.
I suppose true altruism would be if you just did good things without feeling good about it either.
'Attempts to identify true altruism often boil down to redacting motivation from behavior altogether. The story goes that in order to be pure, helping others must dissociate from personal desire (to kiss up, look good, feel rewarded, and so forth). But it is logically fallacious to think of any human behavior as amotivated. De facto, when people engage in actions, it is because they want to. Second... critics of “impure” altruism chide helpers for acting in human ways, for instance by doing things that feel good. The ideal, then, seems to entail acting altruistically while not enjoying those actions one bit. To me, this is no ideal at all. I think it’s profound and downright beautiful to think that our core emotional makeup can be tuned towards others, causing us to feel good when we do. Color me selfish, but I’d take that impure altruism over a de-enervated, floating ideal any day.'
http://www.theguardian.com/science/h...human-altruism