Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Use Proposal

[Wayne Tyson (landrest]

James, Roz, CoHo:

The community I grew up in was far from perfect, but among the prevalent 
shared values was courtesy. When one did something for someone else, one 
felt better about one's self. Except for maybe the town bully, almost no one 
felt elevated when one failed to extend courtesies, such as holding doors 
open for others, taking care of someone else's chores when they were unable, 
loaning possessions to those who didn't have needed items, stopping for 
someone crossing the street, which happened frequently in the absence of a 
pedestrian law, and the like. People didn't analyze motives very much or at 
all; social behavior was woven so tightly into the community that such 
things were just unconsciously done. I must admit that has changed over the 
years, and many people now feel elevated when they put someone else down or 
get the advantage over another. The latter seems more common in the more 
urbanized areas, the former more common in rural ones.

There is something subtly disrespectful implied by posting rules; it implies 
that the poster is in a superior position in an hierarchy of coercion and 
the subject is inferior, in need of instruction from superiors who presume 
the worst about their subjects, rather than the best.

WT


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Kacki" <jimkacki [at] mymts.net>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2011 9:27 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Common House Use Proposal



Roz & Wayne & others,
The 'Smith Family" paper that Roz supplied a link for  was also very
interesting.
To pull out a quote from it:

Six categories of motivations or psychological functions that
may be met by volunteering have been identified (Clary
et al 1996):
1. Values function: people may volunteer to express or
act on values important to the self (e.g. altruism);
2. Understanding function: people may volunteer as
they see it as an opportunity to increase their
knowledge of the world and develop and practice
particular skills;
3. Enhancement function: volunteering may allow
people to engage in psychological development and
enhance their self esteem;
4. Career function: people may volunteer to gain
experiences that will benefit their careers;
5. Social function: volunteering may help people ’fit in’
and get along with social groups they value;
6. Protective function: volunteering may help people
cope with inner anxieties and conflicts.
Using a survey instrument known as the Volunteer
Functions Inventory (VFI), researchers have been able to
confirm the validity of these six categories

If these reasons were understood and discussed by cohousers,
do you think that understanding could be actively used to
increase the  appreciation of voluntary work and reduce conflict
that sometimes occurs around that issue?
James




On 10-May-11, at 11:03 PM, list [at] moz.geek.nz wrote:

> > Ah, good question. Data? Surely you jest.
>
> The plural of anecdote is not data, to give you the famous quote.
>
> > Just how would one go about gathering "data" on such a phenomenon?
>
> Well, we have a big group of cohousing communities here, most of which
> depend on (ongoing) volunteer labour for their existance. I think
> it would
> be relatively easy to gather data on them starting from this email
> list,
> should someone feel so inclined.
>
> I'm going to assume the question is "Why do people do voluntary work
> within their communities" or something similar. Please correct me
> if I'm
> wrong.
>
> A quick poke around the internet showed me a local journal that
> seems to
> focus on the subject "Australian Journal on Volunteering" as well as a
> bunch of papers on the subject. This paper looks at why, how and when
> people volunteer (at a very high level):
> http://www.thesmithfamily.com.au/webdata/resources/files/
> Briefing_Paper_4.pdf
> There are more detailed investigations.
>
> Off the top of my head I've read papers in psychology, economics, game
> theory, sociology and electric engineering on the topic. They all have
> interesting takes on what is a pretty fundamental part of society.
>
> What's interesting for me is the micro version of this that applies
> within
> a small community like a cohousing setup. Especially since the
> group I'm
> in continues to struggle to get people to volunteer (and we're
> still in
> the wishin'n'hopin stage).
>
> Moz
>
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