Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information Leadership, Fifth Edition

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0899764008317971v1
38/1/144    most recent
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Mellor, D.
Right arrow Articles by Cummins, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Volunteering and Its Relationship With Personal and Neighborhood Well-Being

David Mellor

Deakin University

Yoko Hayashi

Deakin University

Mark Stokes

Deakin University

Lucy Firth

University of Melbourne

Lucy Lake

Barrett Consulting

Michael Staples

Crisis Support Services

Sue Chambers

National Trust of Australia

Robert Cummins

Deakin University

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.

Key Words: volunteering • personal well-being • neighborhood well-being • psychosocial resources

This version was published on February 1, 2009

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1, 144-159 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0899764008317971
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?