Although much is known about the individual-level predictors of volunteering, charitable giving, and informal helping, less is known about how the characteristics of communities shape generosity. In this article, we assess the predicted effects of both individual- and contextual-level social capital (social networks and generalized trust) on three forms of generous behavior using the European Social Survey, which provides complete data on over 30,000 respondents in 160 regions in 19 countries. The results suggest that regional-level trust is associated with more volunteering and donating to charities. In addition, regional-level social capital (the combination of trust and social ties) predicts greater volunteering. The relationship between contextual-level social capital and informal helping is weaker.
AbrahamK. G.HelmsS.PresserS. (2009). How social processes distort measurement: The impact of survey nonresponse on estimates of volunteer work in the United States. American Journal of Sociology, 114, 1129-1165.
2.
AdlerP. S.KwonS. (2002). Social capital: Prospects for a new concept. The Academy of Management Review, 27, 17-40.
3.
AmatoP. (1990). Personality and social network involvement as predictors of helping behavior in everyday life. Social Psychology Quarterly, 53, 31-43.
4.
BekkersR. (2012). Trust and volunteering: Selection or causation? Evidence from a 4 year panel study. Political Behavior, 34, 225-247.
5.
BekkersR. (2015). Regional differences in philanthropy. In HarrowJ.JungT.PhillipsS. (Eds.), Routledge companion to philanthropy. London, England: Routledge.
6.
BekkersR.WiepkingP. (2011a). Accuracy of self-reports on donations to charitable organizations. Quality & Quantity, 45, 1369-1383.
7.
BekkersR.WiepkingP. (2011b). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924-973.
8.
BeutelA. M.MariniM. M. (1995). Gender and values. American Sociological Review, 60, 436-448.
9.
BorgonoviF. (2008). Divided we stand, united we fall: Religious pluralism, giving, and volunteering. American Sociological Review, 73, 105-128.
10.
BourdieuP. (1986). The Forms of Capital. In RichardsonJ. G. (Ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241-258). New York: Greenwood Press.
11.
BowlesS.GintisH. (2011). A cooperative species: Human reciprocity and its evolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
BrooksA. C. (2005). Does social capital make you generous?Social Science Quarterly, 86, 1-15.
13.
BrownE.FerrisJ. M. (2007). Social capital and philanthropy: An analysis of the impact of social capital on individual giving and volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36, 85-99.
14.
BurrJ. A.ChoiN. G.MutchlerJ. E.CaroF. G. (2005). Caregiving and volunteering: Are private and public helping behaviors linked?The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences, 60, S247-S256.
15.
ColemanJ. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. The American Journal of Sociology, 94, 95-120.
16.
CurtisJ. E.BaerD. E.GrabbE. G. (2001). Nations of joiners: Explaining voluntary association membership in democratic societies. American Sociological Review, 66, 783-805.
17.
EaglyA. H.CrowleyM. (1986). Gender and helping behavior: A meta-analytic review of the social psychological literature. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 283-308.
18.
EdwardsB.FoleyM. W. (1998). Civil society and social capital beyond Putnam. American Behavioral Scientist, 42, 124-139.
19.
EndersC. K.TofighiD. (2007). Centering predictor variables in cross-sectional multilevel models: A new look at an old issue. Psychological Methods, 12, 121-138.
FischbacherU.GächterS.FehrE. (2001). Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment. Economics Letters, 71, 397-404.
22.
ForbesK. F.ZampelliE. M. (2014). Volunteerism: The influences of social, religious, and human capital. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43, 227-253.
23.
FukuyamaF. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York, NY: Free Press.
24.
GambettaD. (1988). Trust: Making and breaking Cooperative relations. Oxford: Blackwell.
25.
GlanvilleJ. L.BienenstockE. J. (2009). A typology for understanding the connections among different forms of social capital. American Behavioral Scientist, 52, 1507-1530.
26.
HanifanL. J. (1916). The rural school community center. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 67, 130-138.
27.
HardinR. (2002). Trust and trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
28.
HelliwellJ. F.PutnamR. D. (2007). Education and social capital. Eastern Economic Journal, 33, 1-19.
29.
HodgkinsonV. A. (2003). Volunteering in global perspective. In DekkerP.HalmanL. (Eds.), The values of volunteering: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 35-53). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic.
30.
HumeD. (1978). A treatise of human nature, 2nd Edition.Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1740).
31.
JonesK. S. (2006). Giving and volunteering as distinct forms of civic engagement: The role of community integration and personal resources in formal helping. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35, 249-266.
32.
KeltnerD. (2009). Born to be good: The science of a meaningful life. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
33.
LeeY.-J.BrudneyJ. L. (2009). Rational volunteering: A benefit-cost approach. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 29, 512-530.
34.
LeeY.-J.BrudneyJ. L. (2012). Participation in formal and informal volunteering: Implications for volunteer recruitment. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 23, 159-180.
35.
LewisV. A.MacGregorC. A.PutnamR. D. (2013). Religion, networks, and neighborliness: The impact of religious social networks on civic engagement. Social Science Research, 42, 331-346.
36.
LimC.MacGregorC. A. (2012). Religion and volunteering in context: Disentangling the contextual effects of religion on voluntary behavior. American Sociological Review, 77, 747-779.
37.
LinN. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
38.
MarwellG.OliverP. (1993). The critical mass in collective action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
39.
MusickM. A.WilsonJ. (2008). Volunteers: A social profile. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
40.
MusickM. A.WilsonJ.BynumW. B. (2000). Race and formal volunteering: The differential effects of class and religion. Social Forces, 78, 1539-1570.
41.
NeilsonL. A.PaxtonP. (2010). Social capital and political consumerism: A multilevel analysis. Social Problems, 57, 5-24.
42.
ParboteeahK. P.CullenJ. B.LimL. (2004). Formal volunteering: A cross-national test. Journal of World Business, 39, 431-441.
43.
PaxtonP. (1999). Is social capital declining in the United States? A multiple indicator assessment. The American Journal of Sociology, 105, 88-127.
44.
PaxtonP. (2002). Social capital and democracy: An interdependent relationship. American Sociological Review, 67, 254-277.
45.
PaxtonP. (2007). Association memberships and generalized trust: A multilevel model across 31 countries. Social Forces, 86, 47-76.
46.
PichlerF.WallaceC. (2007). Patterns of formal and informal social capital in Europe. European Sociological Review, 23, 423-435.
47.
PlagnolA. C.HuppertF. A. (2010). Happy to help? Exploring the factors associated with variations in rates of volunteering across Europe. Social Indicators Research, 97, 157-176.
48.
PortesA.LandoltP. (1996). The downside of social capital. The American Prospect, 26, 18-22.
49.
PutnamR. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
50.
PutnamR. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65-78.
51.
PutnamR. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
52.
PutnamR. D.PharrS.DaltonR. J. (2000). What’s troubling the trilateral democracies? In PharrS.PutnamR. D. (Eds.), Disaffected democracies: What’s troubling the trilateral countries (pp. 3-27). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
53.
RaudenbushS. W.BrykA. S. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
54.
RegnerusM. D.SmithC.SikkinkD. (1998). Who gives to the poor? The influence of religious tradition and political location on the personal generosity of Americans toward the poor. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 481-493.
55.
RotoloT.WilsonJ. (2012). State-level differences in volunteerism in the United States: Research based on demographic, institutional, and cultural macrolevel theories. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41, 452-473.
56.
RuiterS.De GraafN. D. (2006). National context, religiosity and volunteering: Results from 53 countries. American Sociological Review, 71, 191-210.
57.
SchervishP. G.HavensJ. J. (1997). Social participation and charitable giving: A multivariate analysis. Voluntas, 8, 235-260.
SmithD. H. (1994). Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: A literature review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23, 243-263.
60.
SnyderM.OmotoA. M. (2008). Volunteerism: Social issues perspectives and social policy implications. Social Issues and Policy Review, 2, 1-36.
61.
Stadelmann-SteffenI. (2011). Social volunteering in welfare states: Where crowding out should occur. Political Studies, 59, 135-155.
62.
TomaselloM. (2009). Why we cooperate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
63.
TraunmüllerR. (2011). Moral communities? Religion as a source of social trust in a multilevel analysis of 97 German regions. European Sociological Review, 27, 346-363.
64.
van der MeerJ. (2003). Rain or fog? An empirical examination of social capital’s rainmaker effects. In HoogheM.StolleD. (Eds.), Generating social capital: Civil society and institutions in comparative perspective (pp. 133-152). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
65.
VoicuB.VoicuM. (2009). Volunteers and volunteering in central and Eastern Europe. Sociologica, 41, 539-563.
66.
WangL.GraddyE. (2008). Social capital, volunteering, and charitable giving. Voluntas, 19, 23-42.
67.
WiepkingP.BekkersR.OsiliU. O. (2014). Examining the association of religious context with giving to non-profit organizations. European Sociological Review, 30, 640-654.
68.
WiepkingP.HandyF. (2015). Explanations for cross-national differences in philanthropy. In WiepkingP.HandyF. (Eds.), Generous people, generous nations: A comparative study of global giving. The Palgrave companion to global philanthropy. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
69.
WiepkingP.MaasI. (2009). Resources that make you generous: Effects of social and human resources on charitable giving. Social Forces, 87, 1973-1995.
70.
WilsonJ. (2000). Volunteering. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 215-240.
71.
WilsonJ. (2012). Volunteerism research: A review essay. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41, 176-212.
72.
WilsonJ.MusickM. A. (1997). Who cares? Toward an Integrated theory of volunteer work. American Sociological Review, 62, 694-713.
73.
YamagishiT.YamagishiM. (1994). Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motivation and Emotion, 18, 129-166.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
