PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S SENSITIVITY FORMATION IN THE PROCESS OF INVOLVEMENT IN CHARITY EVENTS

In the paper, based on the study of national and foreign literature, a terminological analysis of the pedagogical essence of the category ‘sensitivity’ as a leading moral quality of the individual, the foundation of which is laid in preschool childhood. The category “sensitivity” is interpreted as an attentive, cordial, friendly, and sympathetic attitude to people, to someone’s grief, experiences, and needs; care for the people’s needs, requests and desires, attention to their problems, interests; compassion for others, willingness to help; the ability to actively, quickly respond to life events, facts with verbal approval or support action about the misfortune, grief that befell someone.The issue of involving preschool children in voluntary, charitable, motivated, socially useful activities and their sensitivity formation as a basic quality of personality is considered. It is proved that charitable actions are an active form of educational practice, in which the child becomes proactive and independent in choosing ways to express their interests, in providing selfless assistance to those who need it.The importance of socio-pedagogical and environmental actions as an environment where preschoolers develop a willingness to help, show compassion and empathy, understand the problems of another person (animal) and the nuances of their mental and physical condition. It is emphasized that the involvement of preschool children in charitable activities contributes to the exercise of the ability to see the difficulties of other people (animals), respond adequately to them, help, act selflessly, enjoy their kindness and care for others, education of indifference to others.

Poverty Attributions and Emotions Associated With Willingness to Help and Government Aid

This study aims to understand how willingness to help people in poverty and the agreement with providing government aid are connected to emotions and attributional processes, in a country with a high poverty rate such as Argentina. Differences in poverty attributions and emotions among self-reported social class are also analysed. A total sample of 331 secondary-school students completed self-administered questionnaires. Correlations and regression analyses showed that, whereas emotions such as compassion, empathy and pity seem to motivate helping behaviours, explanations as to the cause of poverty, rather than emotions, are closely associated with an agreement to providing government aid. However, low levels of anger seem to be required to endorse both helping behaviours and agreement to providing government aid. On the other hand, respondents who self-identify as belonging to upper classes report more anger and use fewer structural explanations to understand poverty than lower-classes respondents. We propose that future research analyse a greater variety of helping behaviours towards people in poverty and types of government intervention in the global south.

Charity Misconduct on Public Health Issues Impairs Willingness to Offer Help

Charity organizations positively impact our societies but charity misconduct impairs people’s willingness to contribute to charity and functional health systems on public health issues. This study investigates the impact of charity misconduct on people’s willingness to offer help on public health issues and possible ways of reducing the negative impact brought by charity misconduct news through four studies (Ntotal = 1269). Results showed that charity misconduct on public health issues significantly reduced individuals’ willingness to offer help via both the charity involved with the misconduct and any charity they prefer (Study 1 and 2). Furthermore, news on charity misconduct reduced people’s general willingness to help in contexts that did not involve charity (Study 3). Finally, presenting charity nonmisconduct news after charity misconduct news increases individuals’ willingness to offer help via the nonmisconduct charity (Study 4), suggesting a potential way to nudge people to provide help in the fight against the negative impact brought by charity misconduct news. The findings show the backfire of reporting charity misconduct news and have important implications for potential ways to facilitate people to offer help.

Effects of Disease Threat and Attitude Similarity on Willingness to Help: The Mediating Role of Disgust

The current research tested the hypothesis that an increase in perceived disease vulnerability would create more feelings of disgust and a reduced willingness to help persons with dissimilar attitudes. To test these hypotheses, two studies were performed. In the first study, 173 university undergraduates indicated their willingness to help a target person who held similar or dissimilar attitudes. Then the participants’ feelings of disgust about helping, and perceived vulnerability to disease were measured. In the second study, 127 university undergraduates read materials designed to make a disease threat or a non-disease threat salient then indicated their willingness to help a target person with similar or dissimilar attitudes. As predicted a concern about disease and attitude similarity interacted to influence willingness to help and this effect was mediated by feelings of disgust.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION MOTIVES OF PRESCHOOLERS’ WITH VARIOUS DEGREES OF EMOTIONAL ADMIRATION OF JOINT ACTIVITY

The article presents the results of theoretical and empirical research of psychological peculiarities of communication motivation of preschoolers who have different degrees of emotional admiration of joint activity. As a result of theoretical analysis, it was found that the most common reason for children to choose a communication partner is the attractiveness of another person as a personality due to the moral, business or physical qualities, a manifestation of sympathy, love to this person, i.e. emotional attitude. At the same time, the need for a more detailed practical study of the problem was confirmed, because the issue of communication motivation in preschool age, in particular, the influence of the degree of emotional admiration of joint activity on this process, remains insufficiently resolved. The data of an empirical study of the peculiarities of communication motives of preschool children with different degrees of emotional admiration of joint activity showed that the higher the degree of emotional interest of preschoolers for joint activity is, the higher the degree of development of communication motives they have. Parameters such as the subjective significance of a peer for a child, which is manifested in the general admiration of others; peer orientation, i.e. the ability to concede, to help; ability to empathy, as well as the child’s choice (to help or not to help to his or her peers), the degree of emotional admiration of the activity and an indication of its expression (positive or negative); the nature of the child’s behavior, its emotional expression, speech, were used as the main indicators of interpersonal relationships. It was proved that the degree of preschoolers’ emotional admiration of joint activity is largely correlated with the level of development of their ability to concede and the willingness to help. Thus, the motives of communication of the preschooler with other children differ depending on the degree of his or her emotional admiration of joint activity, because it was found that the higher the degree of emotional admiration of preschoolers is, the higher the level of development of the ability to concede and the willingness to help they have.

Improving internal service: identifying the roles of employee proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to determine the roles of employee proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity in predicting different aspects of internal service.Design/methodology/approachManagers evaluated 142 professional employees on proficiency, adaptivity and proactivity and about six weeks later 2–3 internal customers evaluated each of the employees on dimensions of internal service, namely reliability (i.e. performing dependably and accurately), assurance (i.e. knowledge, courtesy, and the ability to inspire trust and confidence), responsiveness (i.e. willingness to help customers and provide prompt service) and empathy (i.e. caring and providing individualized attention).FindingsEmployee proficiency and proactivity were the main predictors of delivering reliable services. Employee proficiency was the main predictor for creating a sense of assurance. Employee adaptivity was the main predictor of being viewed as responsive. Employee proactivity was the main predictor for establishing a sense of empathy.Practical implicationsIn a given situation, some aspects of internal service will be more important than others. The results will enable organizations to improve internal service in a more effective and efficient manner by developing interventions that are targeted at the specific dimension of interest.Originality/valueThe authors identified the types of employee behaviors that are likely to be most effective in impacting different aspects of internal service.

Influence of Psychological Distance on People’s Willingness to Help Accident Victims: Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Inferences

Drawing on construal-level theory, this study explored how a sense of psychological distance from an accident influences people’s willingness to help victims. We conducted a scenario experiment with a sample of 81 Japanese undergraduates. Participants were presented with a short scenario describing an accident that happened on either a distant or a nearby mountain. The results show that the greater the distance perceived by participants from the accident, the more likely they were to infer negative traits about the victim at an implicit level. However, the more they inferred negative traits at an implicit level, the more likely they were to attribute the cause of the accident to external situational factors, at an explicit level. Finally, explicit external causal attribution aroused greater sympathy for the victim, resulting in an increased willingness to help. This discrepancy between implicit and explicit inferences was discussed in terms of cognitive elaboration, in which people engage in helping behaviors when they feel responsible for the fate of the victim.