Kontakt 2008, 10(1):150-158 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2008.021

Prosocial behaviour in helping professionsHealth and Social Sciences

Helena Záškodná^1,*, Alina Kubicová²

¹ Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích, Zdravotně sociální fakulta, katedra sociální práce a sociální politiky

² Ostravská univerzita, Filozofická fakulta, katedra psychologie a sociální práce

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.

Keywords: helping profession; competence; professionalism; pro-social behaviour; empathy; empathy development

Received: February 25, 2008; Accepted: April 18, 2008; Prepublished online: June 27, 2008; Published: July 27, 2008  Show citation