This study uses survey data to test the correlation between empathic concern and 14 different prosocial behaviors, including informal help to individuals and formal helping through institutions. Statistically significant correlations were found for 10 behaviors, but substantively meaningful correlations were only found for three, all of which were spontaneous, informal helping behaviors, where ...

Humans can engage in relatively indiscriminate altruistic behaviors such as donating money to charities, giving blood, and volunteering to review scientific papers. They also live in societies characterized by examples of cooperation of unmatched complexity, such as organized armies, the cooperative building of infrastructures such as roads and railways, and tax-paying, among others. (We exclud...

This paper examines how the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES) relates to range of prosocial behaviors, using a large, nationally representative U.S. data set. It finds that daily spiritual experiences are a statistically and substantively significant predictor of volunteering, charitable giving, and helping individuals one knows personally. Daily spiritual experiences better predict help...

This first ever functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of charitable bequest decision-making found increased activation in the precuneus and lingual gyrus of the brain compared to charitable giving and volunteering decisions. Greater lingual gyrus activation was also associated with increased propensity to make a charitable bequest. Previous studies have shown that activation of ...

Abstract This paper explores how ethnographic approaches to third sector and nonprofit studies allow for context-based understandings of the links between volunteering development. Drawing from our ethnographies in Sierra Leone, Burundi Philippines, we argue that methods could tease out local ideologies practices volunteer work can challenge knowledge monopolies over is understood and, later, t...

PURPOSE This study tested the hypothesis that volunteering in environmental organizations in midlife is associated with greater physical activity and improved mental and physical health over a 20-year period. DESIGN AND METHODS The study used data from two waves (1974 and 1994) of the Alameda County Study, a longitudinal study of health and mortality that has followed a cohort of 6,928 adults...