Self-Implemented Human Responsibilities

This thesis looks at motivational forces between work, development and responsibility. Especially the factors self-actualization and altruism. A narrative literature review is combined with a survey study to identify related findings and trends in literature and how these match the contemporary society and people's beliefs. It is found that the economic view of man as being uttermost selfish, is reflected in peoples' views of work-motivation, and even in people's view of 'the will to help'. However, this view of man cannot be motivated by recent psychological findings, and neither is it as visible when asking survey-participants more self-reflecting questions. The conclusion is that altruism is, for some reason, hidden away, but is an intrinsic part of human motivation. It is also hypothesized that a society which guarantees every citizen a basic salary, or other types of basic rights, with no counter performance required in return, can use higher motivational needs such as self-actualization and altruism to motivate a more prosocial and more creative work-force. \emph{keywords: altruism, motivation, volunteering, effectivity, responsibility}