Psychosocial Factors That Influence Volunteer Work: a Pilot Study

108 INTRODUCTION Altruistic behaviours have been the object of abundant theoretical and empirical social science research for some thirty years (Chac—n, 1985, Piliavin and Charng, 1990). In this field there are two tendencies that have captured the majority of research attention. The first of these is represented by unexpected situations in which help is offered to strangers, reflecting the altruistic motivation of the person who offers it, or at least a certain humanitarian concern, since no previous relationship Ðnor, presumably, any subsequent oneÐ exists to justify such behaviour. This type of help is called ÇspontaneousÈ, and is usually of short duration. The second tendency is represented by continuous and prolonged situations of helping, which have to be planned, and which involve people that are known to one another. For this reason, some authors refer to it as ÇobligatoryÈ (Omoto and Snyder, 1995). However, a third form of help exists: volunteer work, much less studied, but of great social relevance, and which could be described as a prolonged and planned helping situation among strangers. The need for research in this area is all the more pressing in view of the growing number of volunteers in recent years, a growth reflected in Spain by the Volunteer Work Law (Ley sobre el Voluntariado) of 1996. Recently, Omoto and Snyder (1993, 1995) have opened up a line of research with the intention of clarifying the psychosocial factors that affect volunteers, such as what motivates them to become involved in situations of helping strangers, which often imply great personal cost over an indefinite period. These authors propose a model for predicting the Permanence of volunteers in a support PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE VOLUNTEER WORK: A PILOT STUDY