Why do students differ in the value they place on pro-social activities?

Abstract

Pro-social activities are intended to benefit someone or something other than oneself. There is little known about the pro-social activities students valorize or why students differ in the value they place on different activities. The study seeks to present an understanding about both these matters. Informed by the critical theorist Jürgen Habermas we first constructed a conceptual model to analyse the desirability and feasibility of pro-social activity among our sample. Using data from an online survey with students involved and not involved in a pro-social activity, we found a significant moderator effect of this engagement. Moreover, students differed in the way they valued different activities, with the engaged group devoting time to educational pro-social activities, while the others were more attracted to alleviating hunger and poverty as pro-social activities.