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

fakulta, katedra psychologie a sociální práce 2 Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra psychiatrie a psychologie SummaryThe article presents the most important results of the pilot study that researched the relationships among prosocial tendencies, empathy and five personality dimensions. The diagnostics of prosocial tendencies was performed with the help of Prosocial Tendencies Measure Questionnaire -PTM by G. Carl and B. A. Randall; the empathy measuring was performed with the help of multi-dimension scale by M. Davis, Interpersonal Reactivity Index -IRI, and the diagnostics of personality dimensions was performed with the help of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory questionnaire -NEO-FFI (Costa, McCrae), which was transformed and standardized for Czech population by M. Hřebíčková and T. Urbánek under the name of NEO pětifaktorový osobnostní inventář (NEO five-factor personality inventory). The research was implemented at a set of 137 university students of social work and educator branch. The research performed showed that prosocial tendencies are significantly related to all followed aspects of empathy, but they are not related at all with the researched personality factors following from Big Five approach. On the contrary, cognitive and emotional empathy are significantly related to the personality factor of kindness and openness towards experience. Therefore it can be considered that the relation among the basic personality dimensions and the prosocial tendencies can be mediated by the level of cognitive and emotional empathy. It seems that the basic personality features of Big Five approach to the explanation why people show prosocial tendencies do not suffice in themselves, without taking in consideration other psychological constructs, as well as results of processes of social learning. SouhrnPříspěvek prezentuje nejdůležitější výsledky pilotní studie, která zkoumala vztahy mezi prosociálními tendencemi, empatií a pěti osobnostními dimenzemi. K dignostice prosociálních tendencí byl využit Prosocial Tendencies Measure -PTM (Dotazník prosociálních tendencí) G. Carla a B. A. Randalla, k měření empatie multidimenzionální škála M. Davise Interpersonal Index Reactivity -IRI (Index interpersonální reaktivity) a konečně k diagnostice osobnostních dimenzí dotazník NEO Five-Factor Inventory NEO-FFI (Costa, McCrae), jenž byl u nás převeden a standardizován pro českou populaci M. Hřebíčkovou a T. Urbánkem pod názvem NEO pětifaktorový osobnostní inventář. Výzkum byl realizován u souboru 137 univerzitních studentek sociální práce a vychovatelství. V provedeném výzkumu bylo zjištěno, že prosociální tendence významně souvisí se všemi sledovanými aspekty empatie, avšak vůbec nesouvisí se zkoumanými faktory osobnosti vyplývající z přístupu Kontakt 2/2006 317 * Tato studie byla podpořena projektem GAČR č. 406/06/0861 "Prosociální chování se zřetelem k altruismu, afiliaci a empatii".

Objective: Care of handicapped or elderly by the family members in the home environment brings not only many positives for the care recipients, but can also impose a significant burden on the caregiver. The goal of the study was to assess the caregiver burden, burnout syndrome and the effect of caregivers’ sociodemographic characteristics. Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants: The sample consisted of 168 caregivers who took care of disabled children or seniors. Methods: Zarit Burden Interview identifying the subjective burden of informal caregivers, and Maslach Burnout Inventory assessing the burnout syndrome were used. Results: A higher level of caregiver burden and the development of burnout syndrome occurring most frequently in the dimensions of Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Accomplishment was observed. The caregiver burden was found to be lower in men, in caregivers living alone, and in the respondents from higher income households; it increased with the weekly amount of care. Conclusions: The results proof the demanding nature of informal care. A longitudinal study could illuminate the temporal changes in the family dynamics.

sociální fakulta, katedra sociální práce a sociální politiky 2 Ostravská univerzita, Filozofická fakulta, katedra psychologie a sociální práce Summary The contribution deals with objective characteristics of helping professionals with respect to requirements resulting from their professional social role expressed in terms of the pro-social behaviour. It resumes the process of social and cultural cases occurring in the development of the practice of a number of helping professions in the last decades. It delimits the helping professions including the concept of the pro-social behaviour within their framework. It analyzes professional competences thanks to which it is to a certain extent possible to predict whether somebody will be successful or unsuccessful in a certain profession. It presents the concept of the competence as a wider spectrum of variables with indicating a hierarchical model of the structure of competences by Lucius and Lepsinger. It quotes results of the evaluation of the professionalism of physicians and medical students in the USA (by L. Arnold), comparing different evaluation methods and evaluating four professionalism aspects: professional responsibility, self-improvement and adaptability of the physician, relationships with patients and families and relationships with healthcare team members. The qualities considered include the altruism, the respect to other people and further humanistic characteristics-honour, integrity, ethical and moral standards, responsibility. The contribution indicates research which made doubtful the stability of professionalism and deviation from the professional behaviour is put in connection with the occurrence of conflicts of values and ethical dilemmas. It supplements results of research indicating quite principal importance of the communication and interaction and also importance of personality characteristics of helping professionals with mentioning as most important factors the empathy, acceptation and manifestations of affiliating behaviour, i. e. principles, which were characterized by C. R. Rogers. The facts mentioned document the justification of the humanistic paradigm for the education of helping professionals.

1 Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra sociální práce a sociální politiky 2 Ostravská univerzita v Ostravě, Filozofická fakulta, katedra psychologie a sociální práce SummaryThe contribution presents selected results of a number of researches of the pro-social behaviour and altruism in emergency situations. It deals in details with a procedural model by S. H. Schwarz and his co-workers, and it analyzes the most important steps of the model. They are as follows: a) realization of the emergency situation and its adequate definition, b) capability of helping (self-evaluation of the own competence in urgent situations), c) introduction of the pro-social motivation (action of internalized individual standards, moral duty of providing the help and personal responsibility), d) anticipation and consideration of positive and negative consequences associated with the help, e) protective mechanisms (which may induce reduction of the probability of the intervention through the mediation of attenuation of the feeling of responsibility), f) adequate help.The model indicates a multiple conditioned nature of the human altruism and it presents factors, the presence of which can complicate or block providing of the help. A special attention is paid to individual standards, the internalization of which means a condition for the possibility that the personal conviction or possibly moral principle became regulators of decision processes concerning the manner of behaviour. They include standards prohibiting activities leading to harm in other people and which order activities leading to benefit and protection of interests of other person, i.e. particularly standard of the social solidarity and standard of the social responsibility. In a system of the psychical regulation, standards of individual persons are anchored by self-reward and self-punishment. The model puts the altruism within the framework of the pro-social behaviour in a narrow relationship just with personal standards and values, which arise from the given culture or possibly from cultural values. They are supplemented by newer empirical data, which support the validity of the model and which refine and extend it in certain aspects.Key words: Pro-social behaviour -model of crisis intervention by S. H. Schwartz -altruism -emergency -capability of helping -social standard -structure of responsibility SouhrnPříspěvek prezentuje vybrané výsledky řady výzkumů prosociálního chování a altruismu v nouzové situaci. Podrobně se věnuje postupovému modelu S. H. Schwarze a jeho spolupracovníků, analyzuje nejdůležitější kroky modelu. Jsou jimi: a) uvědomění si nouzové situace a její adekvátní definování, b) způsobilost pomoci (sebehodnocení vlastní kompetence v naléhavé situaci), c) navození prosociální motivace (působí internalizované individuální normy, morální povinnost poskytnout pomoc a osobní zodpovědnost), d) anticipace a zvažování pozitivních a negativních důsledků, které jsou spojeny s pomocí, e) obranné mechanismy (mohou navodit reduk...