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Volunteering and its relationship with personal and neighborhood well-being

Mellor, David, Hayashi, Yoko, Stokes, Mark, Firth, Lucy, Lake, Lucy, Staples, Michael, Chambers, Sue and Cummins, Robert 2009, Volunteering and its relationship with personal and neighborhood well-being, Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 144-159.


Title Volunteering and its relationship with personal and neighborhood well-being
Author(s) Mellor, David
Hayashi, Yoko
Stokes, Mark
Firth, Lucy
Lake, Lucy
Staples, Michael
Chambers, Sue
Cummins, Robert
Journal name Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly
Volume number 38
Issue number 1
Start page 144
End page 159
Publisher Sage Publications Inc.
Place of publication Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Publication date 2009-02
ISSN 0899-7640
1552-7395
Keyword(s) volunteering
personal well-being
neighborhood well-being
psychosocial resources
Summary Although a relationship between volunteering and well-being has been demonstrated in numerous studies, well-being has generally been poorly operationalized and often defined by the relative absence of pathology. In this study, the authors take a positive approach to defining well-being and investigate the relationship between volunteering and personal and neighborhood well-being. The theoretical approach incorporates elements of the homeostatic model of well-being. A sample of 1,289 adults across Australia completed a questionnaire that assessed personal and neighborhood wellbeing, personality factors, and the psychosocial resources implicated in the homeostatic model of well-being. Analyses reveal that volunteers had higher personal and neighborhood well-being than nonvolunteers and that volunteering contributed additional variance in well-being even after psychosocial and personality factors were accounted for. The findings are discussed in terms of previous research and the homeostatic model of well-being, and it is argued that the relationship between volunteering and well-being is robust.
Language eng
Field of Research 170113 Social and Community Psychology
Socio Economic Objective 940201 Civics and Citizenship
HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
Copyright notice ©2009, Sage Publications
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30022563

Document type: Journal Article
Collection: School of Psychology
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