Altruistic Conduct by the Self-Employed

Views on distribution of public and private duties. Topics: detailed recording of club memberships; reasons for memberships; recording of membership contributions paid and donations; rank sequence of the most important memberships; honorary offices accepted or functions in a club or in public life; amount of donations and amount of work in hours; preference for charitable or scientific recipients of donations; assessment of the general willingness of the population to make donations; personal reaction to requests for donations; judgement on the importance as well as assignment of the tasks to the private area or the area of government tasks for: street planning, education, research, public health system, care of the elderly, support for the handicapped, environmental protection, support for the arts and support for sports; attitude to private foundations in comparison to government research support; attitude to acceptance of private gifts and perceived obligation reciprocate; social feeling of responsibility (scale); achievement orientation; attitude to tax reduction; psychological self-characterization; social origins; occupation of parents in charitable organizations; inheritance tax obligation of parents; sources of one´s own financing of studies; assessment of scholarships as special assistance or as legal right; personally a prisoner of war; impact of a life-threatening accident or a life-threatening illness or a natural catastrophe; belonging to a club or youth group during time in school; holding the function of class spokesman in school and university; frequency of contact with pastors, social workers, politicians, scientists and managers; degree of expected occupational changes through scientific progress; personal publications in technical journals; characterization of circle of friends; work satisfaction; career orientation; religiousness; housing situation; city size.

Given a donation in the last year of more than 500 DM or refusal to donate as well as with intensive honorary activity the following supplemental questions were posed: type of request received; person from whom the idea originated; discussion with other persons about the donation or activity and relation of this person to the recipient of the donation; sum of money or purpose as primary motive for a donation; personal possibilities to monitor the effect of the donation; span of time needed for the decision to donate.