The Differences of the Personality Features and of the Emotional Empathy for Volunteering

The article presents personality features of volunteers as relatively permanent psychological characteristics. It summarizes motives for volunteering discussed in the current concepts of volunteering and it introduces the Functional approach to volunteer motivation. Some results of the research supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic No 407/11/0380, Prosocial behaviour and its personality aspects in the context of volunteering are presented. Research subjects were 240 volunteers, members of Czech Civic Associations of volunteers. Two questionnaires were used. Questionnaire NEO (authors P. T. Costa and R. R. McCraee) is based on the five-factor personality model (Big Five). They are: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness towards experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The emotional empathy of volunteers was assessed by Multi-dimensional Scale of Emotional Empathy for Adolescents and Adults - MEE (by D. R. Caruso and J. D. Mayer). In six subscales measuring the following factors: Suffering, Positive Sharing, Responsive Crying, Emotional Attention, Feel for Others, Emotional Contagion. Scores were compared with sample of the Czech population. Volunteers showed significantly higher score of the personality feature of Agreeableness, Extraversion and Conscientiousness. In the structure of emotional empathy of volunteers dominated Positive Sharing, Emotional Contagion and Feel for Others.