Is Self-Transcendence Philanthropic? Graded Response Model Approach
Frontiers in Psychology May 18, 2022 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.816793 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Altruism Biosphere Volunteering Self-transcendence |
| Key findings | Altruism, but not biosphere, significantly explains prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors; biosphere and altruism are independent constructs and should not be merged into self-transcendence. |
Abstract
This study reveals that strong feelings of altruism were found to be statistically significant in explaining prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors. However, this was not the case for the latent trait biosphere in explaining pro-environmental behavior (e.g., past volunteering in clean-up activities). Regardless of whether they are overseas graduates or not, subjects in this study are more altruistic than biospheric by nature. Using the Graded Response Model (GRM) approach, the study found that the biosphere and altruism are obviously independent of each other and merging them into one dimension, in this instance referred to as “self-transcendence,” makes the construct less reliable. That is why this study in consistence with previous studies could not detect the effect of self-transcendence statistically, as it affects both the past volunteering in environmental affairs and the past volunteering in social welfare.