The Relationship of Personality Factors, Idiocentrism-Allocentrism and Beliefs in A Just World, with Prosocial Behavior and Volunteerism, and the Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy and Social Interest : A Cross-Cultural Study

Crisis conditions and group shifts (immigration, refuging, social movements) have highlighted the need for further action to support conditions and institutions that will steadily promote the well-being of people who do not belong to the privileged social groups. In this perspective multiculturalism, is considered to be expanded by sensitizing mental health professionals and educators as well as increasing their involvement in social interest for social advocacy and prosocial behavior. In order to have some more insight of the above qualities, students and mental health professionals from countries in economic transition namely Greece, Ν=213, the United Kingdom N=114 and Portugal N= 247, were asked, regarding the relationship of the Big-Five Personality Factors (Neo-Five, Costa & McGrae, 1992), Allocentrism-Idiocentrism (Self-Construal Scale -SCS; Singelis, 1994), Beliefs in a Just World (GBJW, Dalbert, Montada, & Schmitt, 1987), Beliefs in an Unjust World (BUW, Dalbert, Lipkus, Katona-Sallay, & Goch, 1998) holding Self Efficiency (Miller et al. 2009) and Social Interest for Social Advocacy:(Miller et al. 2009b) as mediators for Prosocial Behavior (The Prosocial Tendencies Measure, Carlo & Randall, 2003) and Volunteerism (independent variables). The results indicate differences among the three cultural samples regarding the effect of certain Personality Factors and Idiocentrism–Allocentrism these mediated by Self-Efficacy and Social Interest for Social Advocacy regarding the participants’ readiness for Prosocial Behavior and Volunteerism. Results are further discussed with regard to socio-cultural context and participants demographics.
Keywords: Prosocial Behavior, Big-Five Personality Factors, Social Interest for Social Advocacy, Just World Beliefs, Unjust World Beliefs, Volunteerism, cross-cultural views.