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Cultural Imperatives of Prosocial Behaviour: A Redefinition of Volunteerism in Nigeria

Received: 19 August 2015     Accepted: 30 October 2015     Published: 17 November 2015
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Abstract

Volunteerism has been widely defined as a long-term, planned pro-social behavior that benefits strangers, and which occur within an organizational setting (e.g, Penner, 2002). This definition seems to divorce volunteering from by-stander intervention in an emergency situation, which does involve helping strangers. The present paper contends that this definition of volunteerism does not consider cultural imperatives. For example, the paper argues that the indigenous help practices attendant in a collectivist society such as Nigeria do not always locate strangers, and could fellow up help efforts from an emergency to a long-standing non-emergency end. The paper, therefore, posits that any meaningful research and discussion on volunteerism in Nigeria should give credence to cultural foundations of prosocial behaviour such as kinship and in-group empathy. This, hopefully, will improve the possibilities of crime control, terrorism reduction and poverty alleviation.

Published in Humanities and Social Sciences (Volume 3, Issue 5)
DOI 10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20
Page(s) 230-233
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Volunteerism, Kinship, Empathy, Help, Prosocial Behaviour

References
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Chiedozie Okechukwu Okafor. (2015). Cultural Imperatives of Prosocial Behaviour: A Redefinition of Volunteerism in Nigeria. Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(5), 230-233. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20

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    ACS Style

    Chiedozie Okechukwu Okafor. Cultural Imperatives of Prosocial Behaviour: A Redefinition of Volunteerism in Nigeria. Humanit. Soc. Sci. 2015, 3(5), 230-233. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20

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    AMA Style

    Chiedozie Okechukwu Okafor. Cultural Imperatives of Prosocial Behaviour: A Redefinition of Volunteerism in Nigeria. Humanit Soc Sci. 2015;3(5):230-233. doi: 10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20

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  • @article{10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20,
      author = {Chiedozie Okechukwu Okafor},
      title = {Cultural Imperatives of Prosocial Behaviour: A Redefinition of Volunteerism in Nigeria},
      journal = {Humanities and Social Sciences},
      volume = {3},
      number = {5},
      pages = {230-233},
      doi = {10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20150305.20},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.hss.20150305.20},
      abstract = {Volunteerism has been widely defined as a long-term, planned pro-social behavior that benefits strangers, and which occur within an organizational setting (e.g, Penner, 2002). This definition seems to divorce volunteering from by-stander intervention in an emergency situation, which does involve helping strangers. The present paper contends that this definition of volunteerism does not consider cultural imperatives. For example, the paper argues that the indigenous help practices attendant in a collectivist society such as Nigeria do not always locate strangers, and could fellow up help efforts from an emergency to a long-standing non-emergency end. The paper, therefore, posits that any meaningful research and discussion on volunteerism in Nigeria should give credence to cultural foundations of prosocial behaviour such as kinship and in-group empathy. This, hopefully, will improve the possibilities of crime control, terrorism reduction and poverty alleviation.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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    AB  - Volunteerism has been widely defined as a long-term, planned pro-social behavior that benefits strangers, and which occur within an organizational setting (e.g, Penner, 2002). This definition seems to divorce volunteering from by-stander intervention in an emergency situation, which does involve helping strangers. The present paper contends that this definition of volunteerism does not consider cultural imperatives. For example, the paper argues that the indigenous help practices attendant in a collectivist society such as Nigeria do not always locate strangers, and could fellow up help efforts from an emergency to a long-standing non-emergency end. The paper, therefore, posits that any meaningful research and discussion on volunteerism in Nigeria should give credence to cultural foundations of prosocial behaviour such as kinship and in-group empathy. This, hopefully, will improve the possibilities of crime control, terrorism reduction and poverty alleviation.
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Author Information
  • Department of Psychology, Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria

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