Construction of interpersonal helping behaviours exhibited among pirate taxi drivers in the city of Lusaka: an embedded mixed methods design.

Abstract

This study aimed at constructing interpersonal helping behaviours that are exhibited among pirate taxi drivers. Amixed methods study emedded design guided thi study. One hundred and sixty nine pirate taxi drivers who were enlisted using cluster random sampling reponded to a survey questionnaire. A further 41 among them partcitated in the interviews and focus groupdiscussins. Data was analysed using SPSS version 20 and qualitaive data was analysed in word.The findings show that pirate taxi drivers were less proactive to help. However, they had the propensity to be reactive when helping either unsolicited or solicited as these two forms had the highest frequency of instances. More than three quarters of the pirate taxi drivers n = 133 (78.7%) exhibited low egoistic helping behaviour, as compared to a quarter n = 33 (19.5%) who exhibited moderate egoistic helping behaviour. A paltry n = 3 (1.8%) exhibited high egoistic helping behaviour. The sample score was 9.6 (± 2.4 SD) and this was within the low category of egoistic helping behaviour. More than three quarters of the pirate taxi drivers n = 119 (70.4%) exhibited high altruistic helping behaviour, as compared to less than a quarter n = 28 (16.6%) who exhibited low altruistic helping behaviour. Twenty-two (13.0%) exhibited moderate altruistic helping behaviour. The sample score was 11.9 (± 3.2 SD) and this was within the high category of altruistic helping behaviour. The dominant for form of help rendered helping where an individual was in emotional distress (sickness or conflict with colleagues or customer). While the dominant form of helping was, this study shows that the pirate taxi drivers demonstrated a kind of favouritism in helping behaviour. Favouritism was rather more in two of the types of helping behaviour and this included helping those who were characteristically like the pirate taxi drivers in terms of work culture and adherence to social norms of cooperation. Solicited reactive behaviour predicts with certainty altruistic behaviour as p < 0. 002. Solicited reactive behaviour dos not predict with certainty egoistic behaviour as p > 0.665. There was a weak downhill negative linear relationship between egoism and the four types of help that were rendered. For altruism, there were variations in linear relationship with the four types of help that were rendered, which were not statistically significant. The motives for helping thematically included helping for the sake of gaining rewards, as an aspect of empathic joy, to demonstrate brotherliness, as a conscientiousness inherent activity, as a matter of civic virtue and avoiding punishments from group members. The conclusion of this study has added to the dearth of literature which has not paid to helping behaviour in that proactive and reactive helping can be detected in small-scale informal societies of an urban setting. Although this behaviour may be interpreted in a variety of different ways, these results support a theoretical model suggesting that prosocial and reactive altruistic behaviours exist across homogenous social groups, despite vast social economic differences.