The Influence of Christian Religious Affiliation, Gender and Locality on Altruism

ABSTRACT This study investigated the- influence of Christian religious affiliation, gender and locality on altruism. Three hundred and twenty-one staff (Christians) from the randomly selected local government secretariats of Anambra State, Nigeria, voluntarily participated in the study. Three hypotheses were postulated and tested. The instrument for data collection was the self-report altruism scale adapted from Rushton, Chris-John and Fekken (1981), where Cronbach reliability alpha of 0.72 was obtained after the analysis of pilot study. Data analysis using 3 way ANOVA (Ftest) indicated no significant influence of Christian religious affiliation on altruism, but there was significant influence of gender and locality on altruism, F(321=14.72, P

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One:

introduction , . 1

Statement of the Problem 11

Purpose of the Study 12

Operational Definition 12

Chapter Two: .

Evolutionary theory of Altruism . 14

Social exchange theory of Altruism

Defensive theory of Altruism 20

The negative state relief theory of Altruism 21

Role models and social normative theory of Altruism 21

Empathy-Altruism theory: The pure motive for Altruism 23

Empirical Review 26

Christian Religious affiliation and Altruism 26

Gender and Altruism 27

Locality and Altruism 30

Summary of Literature Review 31

Hypotheses , 32 f - -

Chapter Three

Method 33

Participants . . -*3

Instrument 33

Procedure 34

Design/Statistic ^5

Chapter Four

Results . 36

Chapter Five

Discussion

, 38

Implications of Findings 41

Limitation of Study , 41

Suggestion for future Studies 41

Recommendation 42

Summary/Conclusion ' .

- 42

References 43

Appendix I 52

Appendix II 56

Appendix III . .

- , .

. 57