Reinforcements of older volunteers’ performance in Hong Kong

The reinforcement of older adults' performance in volunteering is possible to emerge from volunteer participation through the enhancement of their social integration, life satisfaction, and meeting their expectation for stress relief. Expectancy theory particularly predicts that the efficacy of volunteering in stress relief or maintaining life satisfaction would raise the performance of the senior volunteer who holds a motive for stress relief. To examine these theoretical predictions, the present study analyzes data collected from 719 older Chinese people in Hong Kong. It turns out findings supportive of the hypotheses about the contribution of social integration, life satisfaction, stress relief motive, and congruence between stress relief motive and efficacy in volunteering. Social integration, facilitating life satisfaction and goal formation, could in turn arise through support from peers and social workers regarding volunteering. Therefore, support from social workers and others and the motive of stress relief and its fulfillment introduce the important reinforcement of senior volunteers' performance. © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.