Gender Differences in Altruistic Behavior among Emerging Adults

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Abstract:

The current research study aims to examine the gender differences in altruistic behavior among emerging adults. In the area of altruism, various research has been done in various countries such as China, USA, Canada etc. However, due to differing population demographics, results differed from the current research. The participants (n=141) of the study were emerging adults (18 to 25years). The present research study used a quantitative research design as the Self-Report Altruism Scale was used to collect data. A Chi-Square test of independence was carried out using SPSS® version 20 to examine if there are any gender differences in altruistic behavior and the factors influencing altruistic behavior. Amongst the 141 respondents about 49% were males and 51% were females. This research study found no gender differences in altruistic behavior. In this study, five factors were examined to discover if they influenced altruistic behavior among emerging adults. Using the Chi-Square test of independence, three factors were found to influence altruistic behavior in emerging adults specifically age, presence of religious belief and lastly, the number of people present when the respondent last behaved altruistically; the null hypothesis for the three factors was rejected at 0.05 level of significance. The top three suggested ways of encouraging altruistic behavior among emerging adults according to the respondents were: creation of awareness (50%), socialization (23%) and the use of incentives (17.6%). Future studies could do a similar research with a wider scope of emerging adults from various universities in Kenya.
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