Altruism and its relationship to resilience during disaster

Abstract

Studies positively correlate altruism and prosocial behaviour during routine times, yet unexpected environmental triggers (like a disaster) for prosocial and altruistic behaviour are underexplored. People who score highly on the self-reported altruism scale (SRA) are more likely to engage in volunteer activities such as donating blood. What about altruistic and prosocial behaviour during a disaster triggered by natural hazards? What are the characteristics of altruists? Respondents at three different universities were provided with an electronic link via email to complete the survey anonymously, making a total sample size of 182. The data are derived from responses to a longer survey entitled ‘COVID-19 and Risk Perception’. The original purpose of that survey was to explore how perception of risk (to COVID-19) may or may not impact people’s behaviour and included the SRA. Descriptive assessments of all variables were conducted, as well as crosstabs with analysis of variance comparing several means. Data from our study support our hypothesis that people with higher levels of altruism are more likely to engage in pandemic-related helping behaviour. Data also show that the majority of our sample engage in helping behaviour, though the most altruistic and more intrusive (greatest cost) acts were the least common.
Contribution: These are valuable findings for our collective understanding of the nuances of prosocial behaviour. Findings from this study also revealed that people scoring highly on the SRA reported barriers to practising prosocial behaviour. Better understanding these barriers may enable us to eliminate them.