The Psychology of Volunteering: The Interplay of People, their Motives

and the Social Environments

Gil ClaryCollege of St. Catherine

December 2008

Clary’s Network

• Habitat for Humanity

• ARNOVA

www.arnova.org

• Search Institute

www.search-institute.org

Volunteerism defined

• “An activity which takes place through not for profit organizations or projects and is undertaken:

-- to be of benefit to the community;

-- of the volunteer’s own free will and without coercion;

-- for no financial payment;

-- in designated volunteer positions only.”

(Volunteer Australia)

• “Any activity in which time is given freely to benefit another person, group, or organization.”

(Wilson, 2000, p. 215)

What do Volunteers do?Areas of Volunteering

• Arts & Culture

Museums, orchestras

• Education

Tutoring

• Environment

Wildlife sanctuaries

• Health

Hospitals, clinics

• Human Services

Counseling, homeless

• International/Foreign

Disaster relief

• Political Organizations

Political parties

• Public/Society Benefit

Political advocacy

• Recreation (adult)

Sports clubs

• Youth Development

Scouts, sports leagues

Volunteerism – A World-wide phenomenon

• Salamon & Sokololwski (2001)

• 24 countries surveyed – Western, Central, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Japan, Israel, Australia, United States

• Formal volunteering and excluding volunteering for governments, certain religious volunteering (if not comparable to secular volunteering), and informal volunteering

• Calculating the Full-Time Equivalent Volunteers as a percentage of Non-agricultural employment:

2.5% (ranging from 0.2% to 8%)

Volunteering Organizations - Two Examples

• Australia: estimated 700,000 nonprofit organisations, over half are incorporated; 35,000 employ staff; $33.5 billion dollars in total revenue

• United States: estimated 1,600,000 organizations 400,000 member serving organizations (e.g.,

professional, political, labor unions)1,200,000 public serving organizations (e.g.,

service providers, action agencies, religious congregations, funding intermediaries)Even more (2:1?, 5-10:1?) grassroots

organizations (e.g., self-help, neighborhood, choral, dance, quilt- making)

What’s Intriguing about Volunteering?• Questions regarding Altruism• The gap between belief and behavior• Inaction in the face of significant social

problems• Social change – moving from inaction to action• Multi-disciplinary/Interdisciplinary – Sociology,

Economics, Public Policy/Admin, History, Business, Psychology, Philosophy, Religion

• Intersection of Academic and Practice

Volunteers in Action (and Intergenerational, Social capital)

• Minneapolis St Paul MN Habitat for Humanity

• House building project by College of St Catherine alumna, students, faculty, staff, friends, May – September 2005

• Volunteers 17 – 70s

• Bonding & Bridging

The Functional Approach to Volunteerism (Clary, Snyder et al. 1998)

• People are purposeful, planful, goal-directed • Different people may do similar things for

different reasons • Any one individual may be motivated by more

than one need or goal • Assessment: Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI)• Outcomes depend on the matching of needs and

goals to the opportunities afforded by the environment

Values Function or Motive

• the person is volunteering in order to express or act on important values, such as humanitarianism and helping the less fortunate

• I feel it is important to help others • I feel compassion toward people in need.

Understanding Function

• the volunteer is seeking to learn more about the world and/or exercise skills that are often unused

• I can learn more about the cause for which I am working.

• I can learn how to deal with a variety of people.

Career Function

•the volunteer has the goal of gaining career-related experience through volunteering

•Volunteering can help me get my foot in the door at a place where I’d like to work •Volunteering experience will look good on my resume.

Social Function

• volunteering allows the person to strengthen one’s social relationships

• people I’m close to want me to volunteer.• others with whom I am close place a high value on

community service.

Enhancement Function

• the individual is seeking to grow and develop psychologically through involvement in volunteering

• Volunteering increases my self-esteem • Volunteering makes me feel better about myself.

Protective Function

• the individual uses volunteering to reduce negative feelings, such as guilt, or to address personal problems

• No matter how bad I’ve been feeling, volunteering helps me to forget about it.

• Doing volunteer work relieves me of some of the guilt over being more fortunate than others.

Summary:Volunteer Functions or Motives

• Act on important values (e.g., humanitarianism)

• Learn more about the world, use skills

• Grow and develop psychologically

• Strengthen one’s social relationships

• Reduce negative feelings or address problems

• Gain career experience

VALUES

UNDERSTANDING

ENHANCEMENT

SOCIAL

PROTECTIVE

CAREER

Adult Students Elderly Adult Volunteers Volunteers Volunteers

(early 1990s) (early 1990s) (mid 1990s) (early 2000s) N = 465 N = 534 N = 61 N = 1350

  VFI Scale Values 5.82 5.37 6.04 5.61

 

Understanding 4.91 5.13 4.36 4.52

  Enhancement 4.27 4.64 4.98 4.03

Career 2.74 4.54 1.42 2.31

  Protective 2.61 3.25 3.92 2.76

  Social 2.59 2.95 3.90 2.98

Volunteer Environment

• Functionally-relevant Benefits/Affordances

• Personality of the Volunteer Environment

• Structured Environments

(Strong vs. Weak Situation)

• Cohesion

• Key Idea: match, fit, interplay

Functionally-Relevant Benefits

• I am meeting my humanitarian obligations through my volunteer work at this organization (Value)

• I have learned how to deal with a greater variety of people through volunteering at this organization (Understand)

• I feel more positive about myself and my place in the world as a result of my volunteer work (Enhance)

• My family &/or friends would be disappointed if I stopped volunteering at this organization (Social)

• By volunteering at this organization, I have been able to work through some of my own personal problems (Protect)

• I have learned skills that help me in my paid work (Career)

High

Low

Measuring the Personality of the Volunteer Environment

(Stukas, Worth, Clary, & Snyder, in press)

Findings from 83 organizations that utilize volunteers, and their volunteers (N = 1388)

Organization categories

Arts, Culture, & Humanities (museums)

Education (adult education)

Environment (cleaning/maintaining river valleys)

Health (empowering people with physical disabilities)

Human services (crisis nursery)

Public/Society Benefit (prevent domestic abuse)

Youth Development (mentoring)

Key Measures• Motives assessed by Volunteer Functions

Inventory• Function-relevant Benefits or Affordances • Function-relevant Barriers (e.g., to what extent

does this organization provide obstacles to personal changes or growth)

• Features of the organization (e.g., volunteer director, volunteer handbook, formal training, regular performance evaluations)

Values Motivation - Means by Organization Type

Education

(M=5.60)

Human Services (M=5.85)

Health

(M=5.71)

Public Benefit

(M=5.26)

Arts and Culture

(M=5.02)

Environment

(M=5.24)

Youth Development

(M= 6.02)

- * * * * * Education

- * * * Human Services

- * * * * Health

- * Public Benefit

- * Arts and Culture

- * Environment

- Youth Development

F (6, 1220) = 15.40, p = .000

Youth Development (82 volunteers, 6 organizations) Motives Experiences Facilitators Barriers Values + + Understanding + Social + Career + + Enhancement Protective

Human Services (444 volunteers, 27 organizations) Motives Experiences Facilitators Barriers Values + Understanding Social Career + + Enhancement Protective

Structured Environment Defined• Proscribe behavior via strong norms• Presence of social pressures regarding behavior• Bind volunteers to them• Social contacts with others who uphold norms• Provide structured channels for behavior

• For Less Structured Environments, the match of motives and motive satisfaction better predicts outcomes

Structured Environment Measured

• Volunteer coordinator• Performance Evaluations• Worked directly with clients• Worked with other volunteers• Worked with paid staff

300.00250.00200.00150.00100.0050.000.00

Total Match Index

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

Volu

nte

er Satisfa

ction

High Structure

Low Structure

High Structure

Low Structure

Context

Social Capital

(Putnam, 2000)

• “connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” (p. 19).

• “Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a norm of generalized reciprocity” (p. 21).

• Generalised Trust Scale (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994): assesses trust in other people

Conclusions

• Importance of individual Volunteers-- needs and goals (motives)

• Importance of Volunteer Environments -- affordances, Structured-ness

• Importance of the match or interplay of volunteers and environments-- Benefits to the Volunteer -- Benefits to the Organization -- Benefits to Society

Cautions

• Good intentions may not result in good outcomes

• Some Volunteers may have bad intentions

• Pressure to Volunteer may be counter-productive in the long-run