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The Social Production of Altruism: Motivations for Caring Action in a Low‐Income Urban Community
Author(s) -
Mattis Jacqueline S.,
Hammond Wizdom Powell,
Grayman Nyasha,
Bonacci Meredith,
Brennan William,
Cowie Sheri-Ann,
Ladyzhenskaya Lina,
So Sara
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-008-9217-5
Subject(s) - altruism (biology) , social psychology , ideology , ethnography , norm (philosophy) , sociology , psychology , action (physics) , collective action , political science , politics , anthropology , physics , quantum mechanics , law
Abstract Contemporary social science paints a bleak picture of inner‐city relational life. Indeed, the relationships of low‐income, urban‐residing Americans are represented as rife with distress, violence and family disruption. At present, no body of social scientific work systematically examines the factors that promote loving or selfless interactions among low‐income, inner‐city American individuals, families and communities. In an effort to fill that gap, this ethnographic study examined the motivations for altruism among a sample of adults ( n = 40) who reside in an economically distressed housing community (i.e., housing project) in New York City. Content analyses of interviews indicated that participants attributed altruism to an interplay between 14 motives that were then ordered into four overarching categories of motives: (1) needs‐centered motives, (2) norm‐based motives deriving from religious/spiritual ideology, relationships and personal factors, (3) abstract motives (e.g., humanism), and (4) sociopolitical factors. The implications of these findings are discussed.