Okun Morris A, Kim Ga Young
a Arizona State University.
J Soc Psychol. 2016;156(3):328-33. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2015.1080657.
One developmental task in emerging adulthood is finding meaning and purpose in life. Volunteering has been touted as one role that fosters purpose in life. We examined whether the association between frequency of volunteering and purpose in life varies with pleasure-based prosocial motivation and pressure-based prosocial motivation in a sample of 576 undergraduates, ages 18-22 years old. In a regression analysis predicting purpose in life, the frequency of volunteering by pleasure-based prosocial motivation by pressure-based prosocial motivation interaction effect was significant (p = .042). Simple slopes analyses revealed that frequency of volunteering was not significantly (p = .478) related to purpose in life among college students who were low in both pleasure-based and pressure-based prosocial motivation. The findings of the present study highlight the importance of prosocial motivation for understanding whether emerging adults' purpose in life will be enhanced by volunteering.
成年初期的一项发展任务是在生活中找到意义和目标。志愿服务被视为一种能够培养生活目标的角色。我们在一个由576名年龄在18至22岁之间的本科生组成的样本中，研究了志愿服务频率与生活目标之间的关联是否会因基于愉悦的亲社会动机和基于压力的亲社会动机而有所不同。在一项预测生活目标的回归分析中，基于愉悦的亲社会动机与基于压力的亲社会动机的交互作用对志愿服务频率的影响显著（p = 0.042）。简单斜率分析表明，在基于愉悦和基于压力的亲社会动机都较低的大学生中，志愿服务频率与生活目标之间没有显著关联（p = 0.478）。本研究结果凸显了亲社会动机对于理解志愿服务是否会增强成年初期个体生活目标的重要性。
