Altruism, social interaction, culture, and social capital

Purpose: This paper explains the relationships among altruism, social interaction, culture, and social capital. Findings: The theoretical models developed here show that, through social interaction, cultural process creates higher average level of psychological altruism and also a more uniform level of psychological altruism of a society. Moreover, social capital can be defined and measured as the average level of psychological altruism of a society. Practical and Social implications: This precise definition for social capital is important to prevent it from being variably translated into many indicators or variables in research. This variability can undermine both the ability to compare one research to another as well as the accuracy of the results.