PALGRAVE RESEARCH HANDBOOK OF VOLUNTEERING AND NONPROFIT ASSOCIATIONS Chapter 33: Physiological correlates of volunteering: health, neurology, hormones, and genetics

We review the evidence on physiological correlates of volunteering, a neglected but promising field of research. Volunteers are in better health, both self-reported and assessed, and perform better on cognitive tasks. Research thus far has not examined neurological, neurochemical, hormonal and genetic correlates of volunteering. Studies on charitable giving suggest that these physiological characteristics are related to volunteering, including specific genes (such as OXTR genes, AVPR genes, DRD4, 5HTTLPR). We recommend that future research is extended to nonwestern populations, focuses specifically on volunteering, and differentiates between forms of volunteering. A. INTRODUCTION This chapter reviews the evidence on physiological correlates of volunteering. In what way could the physiology of volunteers be different from non-volunteers? We discuss six groups of physiological correlates: in the areas of health, cognition, neurology, hormones, and genetic factors. The chapter is written from a growing awareness that most of the research on volunteering in the social sciences has ignored physiological aspects of human sociality (Baerman 2008; Von Scheve 2011), while a comprehensive explanation of volunteering clearly requires an integration of physiological aspects (Smith, 2014; more generally see Freese, Li and Wade 2003). An important part of research on volunteering is conducted by sociologists, as the reviews by David Horton Smith (1994) and John Wilson 2000; 2012) show. In the spirit of Durkheim (1897), who sought to establish sociology as a science of human behavior separate from biology, sociologists “have allowed the fact that we are social beings to obscure the biological foundations upon which our behavior ultimately rests” (Massey 2002; also see Van den Berghe 1990). Perhaps the neglect of physiological correlates of social behavior is a result of fear that evidence may be found that indeed there are such physiological correlates. Such knowledge could be dangerous. The holocaust reminds us that knowledge on physiological correlates of human behavior can be very dangerous when it gets into the wrong hands (Benton 1991). While sociologists have only recently become more open to biosocial explanations of social behavior (Freese 2008), economists have been more open to behavior genetics since the 1970s (Bowles and Gintis 2001). Also in demography (D’Onofrio and Lahey 2010) and criminology the acceptance of biological factors is growing (Ishikawa and Raine 2002; Boisvert