Self-transcendence values and sense of community: Driven by the concern for the welfare of strangers or for those we are acquainted with?

Self-transcendent values have recently been introduced in research in Sense of Community (SoC) to address the issue of inclusive and exclusive forms of SoC. The present paper, reporting the findings of a cross-sectional study involving 469 adult Italian participants,expands the results of a previous study by (a) replicating a model in which community universalism (i.e., an operational application of universalistic rules in local communities) is associated to SoC both directly and indirectly, through the mediation of the perceived reliability of community facilities, and (b) adding the basic self-transcendent values of benevolence and universalism to the model so as to test their associations with community universalism and SoC. The results confirmed the original model and showed different patterns of relationship linking benevolence (directly) and universalism (indirectly) to SoC. The differences are explained based on the concrete vs. abstract level of the two values and the different social categorization level implied.