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National Culture of Indulgence as Predictor of Prosocial Behavior: Governmental Effectiveness as Boundary Condition

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Abstract

Previous studies of national culture and prosocial behaviors have been limited to Hofstede’s five traditional culture dimensions. We introduce the fairly new and less studied cultural dimension of indulgence versus restraint (IVR) as a predictor of prosocial behaviors. We tested the effect of IVR on prosocial behavior over Hofstede’s previously studied dimensions. We also tested the moderating effect of government effectiveness on the relationship between indulgence and prosocial behavior. We crossed data for cultural dimensions from Hofstede with data from the world-giving index for prosocial behavior and data for government effectiveness from the World Bank. In total, eighty-seven countries entered our model. Indulgence predicted volunteering above the other researched cultural dimensions. It did not predict helping a stranger or donating. Among the cultural dimensions, only uncertainty avoidance was also significant in the prediction of volunteering. Uncertainty avoidance was the only cultural dimension that predicted donating. Individualism was not significant in the prediction of prosocial behaviors. Long-term orientation was the only cultural dimension that predicted helping a stranger (but not volunteering and donating) over other researched cultural dimensions. We found that government effectiveness is a boundary condition to the link between indulgent cultures and two prosocial behaviors (donating and helping a stranger but not for volunteering). Our results indicate that only in countries with high government effectiveness does indulgence predict prosocial behaviors, and not in cultures with low government effectiveness.

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Notes

  1. We use the terms generosity, philanthropy, and prosocial behaviors synonymously. In all instances, we refer to three specific behaviors: volunteering, donating money, and helping a stranger. We do not include other forms of prosocial behaviors such as donating blood, voting, belonging to associations, or consciously purchasing ethical products (see Cnaan and Park 2015).

  2. Both Einolf (2017)’s theories and theories of organizational culture, differ from and help delineate the theoretical construct of national–cultural dimensions in explaining cross-national prosocial behavior. Einolf (2017), using Gallup data which are also partially used in this article, reported support for political and economic theories but not for religious and cultural theories. However, Einolf defined cultural theories as religious differences or ethnic and linguistic diversity. While these concepts are important, they are not true national culture variables.

  3. We realized that other country variables such as geographic size, population size, religious heterogeneity, and economic development, to name a few, could have impacted the results. However, a power analysis that takes into consideration the number of predictors and the sample size revealed that adding variables demands a sample size of above 100 countries. Given the limited sample size (N = 87) which is large for national comparisons but not enough to add more variables to our model, we avoided adding more controls to the model.

  4. In our study, we also tested another related concept: The corruption perceptions index (CPI) is produced by Transparency International (2013). The CPI generally defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefit.” More specifically, Transparency International (2013) asserts:

    From children denied an education, to elections decided by money not votes, public sector corruption comes in many forms. Bribes and backroom deals do not just steal resources from the most vulnerable—they undermine justice and economic development, and destroy public trust in leaders.

    We assumed that the same logic we presented in our paper for GE will work also for CPI. When we correlated CPI with GE, we obtained an almost perfect correlation (r = .916). As such, we had to include only one of them, and we opted for GE.

  5. In India, for example, where GE is very low, a new foundation has emerged that vets all interested nonprofit organizations; only those who meet strict criteria can ask donors to help them through this foundation (Shier & Handy, 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Welfare and Health Sciences, Department of Human Services, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel

    Gil Luria

  2. Program for Religion and Social Policy Research, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania and Kyung Hee University, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Ram A. Cnaan

  3. Faculty of Welfare and Health Sciences, School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel

    Amnon Boehm

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  1. Gil Luria
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  2. Ram A. Cnaan
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Correspondence to Gil Luria.

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Luria, G., Cnaan, R.A. & Boehm, A. National Culture of Indulgence as Predictor of Prosocial Behavior: Governmental Effectiveness as Boundary Condition. Voluntas 30, 1164–1175 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-019-00124-5

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