Guess in my (eastern influenced) current view the cycle of death and rebirth doesn't somehow magically change the person's ego/basic tendencies/karma - that's down to life experience/circumstances, self work and intention.
If an individual is very strongly controlled by egotistically driven behaviours in this life, then it's also going to be the case through the afterlife, and into the next life.
The big variable is probably life circumstances - given the that karma (some teach) manifests unpredictably the individual may be born into a situation that more or less causes underlying egotistical tendencies to manifest.
Over a longer picture/multiple cycles the negative karma resulting from this will presumably result in a tendency towards rebirth in less advantageous circumstances - and the deeper one gets enmeshed in karma the harder it seems to get to summon the will to work towards release.
This view essentially holds that there is no objectively existing independent evil - only degrees of entrapment by ego. Which in turn obscures our ability to see from the higher view (we instead perceive them from a low level that casts them as evil and hence fearful individuals undeserving of love) the oneness and lovable/love deserving nature of all - and hence makes it more or less difficult to choose love as the basis of our life.
The other perspective that's important in my book is that karma and tendencies to ego/evil are not the result of some external cosmic system of reward or punishment. They are rather the result of our own beliefs, the creation of our mind.
This is in fact the way mirage of ego sustains itself - we draw on our perhaps heavily suppressed knowledge of what is good to set a standard by which we judge ourselves. The resulting guilt combined with an imagined vengeful God (seen as another self to be feared, rather than an all loving power of which we are a part, one that will not punish and which anyway sees what we perceive as evil as non-existent) causes us to instinctively retreat from love, and hence further into ego driven beliefs and behaviours that result in 'evil'. This becomes a negative spiral driving us away from God/love/our higher nature.
This is why ACIM for example teaches that forgiveness is the solution (Buddhism teaches the development of compassion, wisdom and equanimity by similar means, most especially compassion towards self) - realisation that this whole belief system is just that, and not real; and therefore capable of being dropped instantly.
The problem is of course to find our way to doing this - ego beliefs make our guilt and fear and all the other perceptions that strengthen ego and thus make self forgiveness very difficult.
It's taught that it's not possible except with the help of higher mind/the Holy Spirit and right intention....