What a scholar or researcher should choose, if he has to decide whether to contribute to the large society or to satisfy himself? I hold that the answer is the first one, with several reasons below.
Firstly, the general purpose of doing researches is the development of the large society, rather than the satisfaction of few individuals. The logos of almost all the institutes will be shown as working for the large society, such as, NASA, whose first word "national" of shows it works for the whole nation of America. As the action of doing researches is for the well being of the large society, an adequate person to perform it, a researcher or scholar, should be always prepared for contribute to the large society.
Secondly, the actions of contribution to the large society can always give out more utilities than those for themselves. The researches for the researchers' own interests will always use some funds for the scholars' or researchers' everyday life that has no connection with the researches themselves. Then the utility of the researches' results will be cut down. Everybody's life quality depends on those utilities, so to make every individual happy, it will be better to contribute to the large society.
At the same time, to pursue individual interests and to contribute to the large society do not interfere with each other. To better the researches, the researchers' individual interests improvements should concur with the contribution to the large society, because by doing this, the spirits of the researchers will be heightened and the contributions they make will be greater than how much they get. And extreme actions, such as bribes or corruptions, could be prevented after individual interests are paid attention to.
In all, the contribution to the large society is more important than the other. Moreover, they can be realized at the same time.