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A Calling to Heroism

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies

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Synonyms

Calling orientation; Career as calling; Career calling; Modern calling; Neoclassical calling; Transcendent calling; Work as a calling; Work orientation

Definition

A calling is a consuming, meaningful passion people feel toward a domain, such as work (Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas, 2023). Callings can give life purpose, feel like one’s destiny, and often involve helping others (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009).

To be called to do something suggests that it is something one must do, that to not do it would be to deny one’s essential purpose in life. Callings have historically been seen as originating from a higher power; in the Protestant Reformation, for example, callings were explicitly characterized as coming from God to perform a set of actions in God’s service (for histories, see Berkelaar and Buzzanell 2015; Bunderson and Thompson 2009). Today, callings are commonly used in a secular context. They may originate from an external source, such as an important societal problem in need of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Babson College, Babson Park, MA, USA

    Jennifer Tosti-Kharas

  2. University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Christopher Wong Michaelson

Authors
  1. Jennifer Tosti-Kharas
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  2. Christopher Wong Michaelson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer Tosti-Kharas .

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA

    Scott T. Allison

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Tosti-Kharas, J., Michaelson, C.W. (2023). A Calling to Heroism. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_183-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_183-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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