The Caring Motivation An Integrated Theory

Caring is all around us and is manifested in diverse settings such as parenting, friendships, volunteering, altruism, mentoring, teaching, pet adoption, and gardening. The study of caring, the giving end of our relations, has been dispersed among a large variety of research paradigms (e.g., evolution, brain research, attachment theory, feminism, altruism, volunteering, parenting, social support, prosocial development, organizational citizenship behavior and sustainability) and this has impeded our understanding of caring.

The Caring Motivation is a pioneering attempt to bring the diverse research on caring together and to examine caring as a motivation from a broad perspective that relies on these very diverse literatures. Author Ofra Mayseless underscores that we as a species have an innate, biologically driven and evolutionarily chosen, yet contextually sensitive, general motivation to care, tend, empower, and nurture. Several intriguing insights emerge, and a conceptual model of caring as a fundamental and encompassing human motivation is presented. This is the first time that such a model is discussed in detail and its presentation helps us understand core common processes of caring across diverse targets as well as unique adaptations. The model presents for the first time a comprehensive view on how caring is psychologically activated and sustained and underscores the importance of life meaning and purpose in its enactment. The book also introduces a preliminary and innovative model of the universal developmental course of the caring motivational system from infancy to adulthood. This novel and pioneering view opens up exciting new arenas for research and for applications in psychotherapy, education, human growth, spirituality and religions, leadership and organizational behavior, and human sciences in general and highlights the pivotal place of care in our lives.

Ofra Mayseless, PhD, is a professor of developmental psychology at the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel and a certified clinical psychologist. She served as Dean of the Faculty of Education University of Haifa and as Head of the National Pedagogical Secretariat, at the Ministry of Education Israel. Her research spans over 80 published articles and chapters and two edited books focused on close relationships and children's, adolescents' and adults' attachment manifestations and caring.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Part I - Conceptual Frameworks Regarding Caring

Part 1 Introduction
Chapter 2: Spiritual views of caring: Caring as divine
Chapter 3: Evolutionary approaches to caring/caregiving
Chapter 4: Empathic processes as key experiences in caring
Chapter 5: Biological bases of caregiving
Chapter 6: Attachment theory and caregiving
Chapter 7: Feminist perspectives
Part I Conclusion

Part II - Manifestations of Caring and Caregiving in Different Domains and Contexts

Part II Introduction
Chapter 8: Caring for familiar others
Chapter 9: Caring for strangers - conceptual perspectives
Chapter 10: Caring for strangers - examples of caring and nurturance
Chapter 11: Caring for non-human entities
Chapter 12: Caring in different social roles and contexts
Part II Conclusion

Part III - The Development of Caring and Individual Differences

Part III Introduction
Chapter 13: The developmental course of the motivation to care (ontogenic development of caring)
Chapter 14: Individual differences in caring
Chapter 15: Sex/gender differences in caregiving
Part III Conclusion

Part IV. A Conceptual Model of Caring as a Motivation

Part IV Introduction
Chapter 16: The 'caring motivational system' - fundamental, innate, complex and sophisticated
Chapter 17: The 'caring motivational system' - general, encompassing, diverse and flexible
Chapter 18: Tying the diverse conceptual perspectives together - ultimate and proximate causes
Chapter 19 : The nature of our species - conceptual and applied implications
Chapter 20 Summary and Major Contributions

References
About the Author
Index