Applying the volunteer process model to predict future intentions for civic and political participation: same antecedents, different experiences?

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the volunteer process model (VPM), we compared proximal (the TPB variables) and distal (general social support and sense of community) antecedents and quality of experience between civic (CP) and political (PP) participation. Outcome variables were future intentions. We used data from a mail survey of 3,231 adults with or without prior CP or PP experience. Both inexperienced and experienced individuals perceived PP more negatively than CP. Quality of experience was also rated substantially more negatively for PP than for CP. Distal antecedents had similar effects for CP and PP, but they were mostly significant for CP only. In line with the VPM, quality of experience was the strongest predictor of future intentions in experienced individuals. Perceived behavioral control was the strongest mediator. Findings corroborate the distinction between CP and PP and suggest that PP is much less attractive on average.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism and volunteering
• civic and political engagement
• quality of experience
• theory of planned behavior
• volunteer process model

Acknowledgments

The mail survey “Local environment, individual developmental assets, and local potential for civic participation” (PIs: Everhard Holtmann, Rainer K. Silbereisen) was funded by the Ministry for Science and Economy of the Federal State of Saxony-Anhalt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from a public repository Share_it (https://osf.io/rmcq6) upon reasonable request.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badge for Open Materials. The materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/rmcq6.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

1. We excluded individuals with experience in only one type of participation from these comparisons, because otherwise the civic–political distinction might be confounded with the role of prior experience (there were much more participants with prior CP experience than those with prior PP experience).

2. Pavlova et al. (2015) used the same dataset as the present study but included only civic participation and tested for the effects of distal predictors on future intentions in those who are currently not engaged (irrespective of prior experience). It did not compare civic and political participation or those with and without prior experience, nor did it include the TPB variables.

3. As family and friend support were strongly intercorrelated (about .5), we excluded friend support to check whether the negative effects of family support might be due to a suppressor effect. Without friend support in the equation, general family support did not have significant effects on future intentions for CP, but the direction of effects remained negative. Furthermore, significantly negative direct or indirect effects of general family support on future intentions for CP emerged when the TPB variables were included.

4. Here and below, where we report on the significance of differences between the standardized regression coefficients for CP and PP, the underlying regression weights may deviate from those shown in the tables and figures, because to ensure comparability, we used different subsamples for these comparisons: those without any prior experience and those with experience in both CP and PP.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft, Land Sachsen-Anhalt.

Notes on contributors

Maria K. Pavlova

Maria K. Pavlova holds a doctoral degree in Psychology from the Lomonosov Moscow State University. She is currently a Professor of Psychological Gerontology at the University of Vechta. Her research interests cover civic and political engagement, paid work and mental health, active aging, and life-span psychology.

Julia M. Gellermann

Julia M. Gellermann holds a Master Degree in Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Health from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. She is currently working as a Human Resources Desk Officer at the Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF) in Berlin.

Everhard Holtmann

Everhard Holtmann, Prof. Dr., is a political scientist and Research Director of the Center of Social Research at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Tobias Jaeck

Tobias Jaeck has a Diploma in Sociology from the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He works as a Research Associate at the Center of Social Research.

Astrid Körner

Astrid Körner has a doctoral degree in Psychology (Friedrich-Schiller University Jena). Her research interests include social change and individual adjustment, psychological impact of unemployment as well as civic and political participation. Currently, she works as a research associate in a project “Youth and Europe: Between polarization and cohesion” (JUROP) at the Department of Educational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena.

Rainer K. Silbereisen

Rainer K. Silbereisen is a Research Professor Emeritus of Developmental Psychology at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany. His research has been focused on human development across the life span and on psychological consequences of social, political, and cultural change. He was President of various international science organizations.