Donation to disaster relief campaigns: Underlying social cognitive factors exposed

A number of very serious natural disasters have put an enormous pressure on relief organizations in the last few years. The present study exposes underlying social cognitive factors for donation to relief campaigns. A causal model was constructed, based on social cognitive theory, research on attitudes, and the impact of media exposure. The aim was to expand and improve an already existing model by Cheung and Chan [Cheung, C. K., & Chan, C. M. (2000). Social-cognitive factors of donating money to charity, with special attention to an international relief organisation. Evaluation and Program Planning, 23, 241–253]. The expanded model showed a better fit. Furthermore, the expanded model explained two-thirds of the variance of the intention to donate to a disaster relief campaign. The greatest predictor of the intention to donate proved to be “Past donation to disaster relief campaigns.” The factor “News exposure” was indicated to be a valuable additional factor, as it had a significant direct effect on “Awareness of a disaster relief campaign” and was the only factor that had a total effect on all other factors, including “Intention to donate to a disaster relief campaign.”     

Modelling the role of anticipated emotions in blood donor behaviour: A cross-sectional study

For blood transfusion centres, studying anticipated emotions (AEs) related to blood donation is essential, since these variables influence donation decision. For this reason, this work addresses the need to identify the antecedents and consequences of AEs, which will help explain their origin and their role in donation behaviour. Our purpose is to make further progress with the application of the AE framework in a non-profit context, by analysing how AEs are generated and how they influence decision-making. This study aims to design and validate an explanatory model of donation intention, where motivations and attitude towards donation are direct antecedents of AEs, while AEs, motivations and attitude towards donation act as direct antecedents of intention. Moreover, it has been also considered how the type of donor influences the proposed model as a moderating factor. The final sample is comprised of 35,982 active donors, inactive donors and non-donors. Data was obtained through an online questionnaire, with the collaboration of 14 of the 17 Spanish blood transfusion centres, as well as some universities. Results indicate that (1) AEs, motivations and attitude towards donation are direct antecedents of donation intention, (2) motivations and attitude towards donation are direct antecedents of AEs, and (3) donation experience moderates the relationships between motivations, attitude towards donation, AEs, and donation intention. These results indicate several operational implications that will enable blood transfusion centres to better design and target donation promotion campaigns according to type of donor. Furthermore, the results will let centres assess whether placing value on donation motivation and attitude towards donation can bolster positive AEs, diminish negative AEs and have a direct effect on donation intention.     

Gender and Sexual Motivation

The literature on sexual motivation consistently depicts males as primarily motivated by physical and women by emotional factors. Supporting research has been almost exclusively limited to predominantly unmarried teenagers and college aged students, implicitly assuming the absence of age differences in sexual motivation. There has also been a tendency to infer personal values from stated motivations. The present study questions these two assumptions by analyzing two questions included in a survey of 179 adults aged 22 to 57 years, one on respondents' usual motive for engaging in sexual intercourse and anoth6r on their assessment of its most important benefit. An Analysis of Variance reveals significant gender differences in usual motivation but nor in ideal benefits and significant interactions between gender and age in both usual and ideal motivations. Further, we found only a moderate relationship between usual motive for engaging in sexual intercourse and respondent's assessment of its most important benefit. These findings lead us to conclude that caution must be used in making generalizations regarding motives for engaging in sexual intercourse either across age or from sexual realities to sexual ideals.     

Event‐Related Attributes Affecting Donation Intention of Special Event Attendees

The practice of increasing donations through special events has significant financial implications for charitable organizations. However, little is known about how such events can be organized to increase individuals’ donation intention beyond their event attendance. In this case study, a post‐event survey was conducted with attendees of a professional golf tournament operating as a special event to identify event‐related attributes that affected their intention to donate to the cause supported by the event. The results indicate that attendees’ donation intention was positively associated with their event satisfaction, perceived contributions of the event to the cause, and sense of camaraderie at the event. Furthermore, the effects of event satisfaction and camaraderie were stronger for attendees whose primary motivation for attending the event was unrelated to cause support. These results support hypotheses drawn from social exchange theory and provide implications for charitable organizations engaging in special events.     

Sustainability and Disaster Planning: What Are the Connections?

In this article, we examine the connections between resiliency and sustainability by asking: Can disaster planning lead to more sustainability actions? In a survey we conducted of 1,899 cities, towns, and counties across the United States in 2015, we found that disaster plans are three times more common than sustainability plans. Our regression models find both types of plans lead to sustainability action as does regional collaboration across the rural‐urban interface. However, we find that hazard mitigation planning may be done without including sustainability staff, citizens, and other officials. After controlling for motivations, capacity, and cooperation, we find that rural communities are more likely to have sustainability plans than suburbs, though their level of sustainability action is lower due to capacity constraints. Our models of multilevel governance find local motivations balance sustainability’s concept of environmental protection, economic development, and social equity—and are more important drivers of action than grassroots or higher‐level government funding and policy. This bodes well in a context where federal government leadership on sustainability is absent.     

Social motivation and health in college club swimming

ABSTRACT

Objective: Participation in recreational sport clubs on campus is a popular student activity nationwide. These sport-based organizations provide a host of benefits within recognized dimensions of health and wellness. Understanding participants’ motives for engaging in these types of activities can provide insight in design and delivery and enhance participant health. This study focuses on outcomes related to the social motivations for participation in a recreational sport swim club and their potential relationship to social health. Participants: Current members of recreational swimming clubs were contacted for participation in the study from March-April 2016. Methods: A Leisure Motivation Scale (LMS) survey was sent electronically to 196 collegiate swim clubs nationwide. Aggregate and multivariate analyses from 1011 responses were conducted to examine the social motivation and motivational differences of participants. Results: Social motivations emerged as the predominate motivational construct, indicating important implications for social health improvement through participation. Demographically, results indicated no statistically significant differences in social motivation factors based on participant gender, and statistically significant differences within participant race, university affiliation and practice frequency. Conclusions: Impacts of these findings are important for practitioners and participants when evaluating the potential these programs have to influence participant social health.     

College students' motivation for physical activity: differentiating men's and women's motives for sport participation and exercise

Despite the many clear benefits of an active lifestyle, lack of physical activity is a significant health problem in the college population. A key issue in physical activity research is developing an understanding of motivation. Although physical activity takes many forms, most research designed to enhance motivation for and adherence to physical activity focuses on exercise behavior and ignores sport participation. In this study, the authors compare motivations for sport participation versus exercise among college students. Results indicate that participants were more likely to report intrinsic motives, such as enjoyment and challenge, for engaging in sport, whereas motivations for exercise were more extrinsic and focused on appearance and weight and stress management. The findings suggest that motives for sport participation are more desirable than those for exercise and may facilitate improved adherence to physical activity recommendations.     

Exploring customers’ situational and word-of-mouth motivations in corporate misconduct

The purpose of this study was to understand customers’ motivations in engaging in information forwarding and negative word-of-mouth behaviors in light of alleged corporate misconduct. To do so, an online survey was conducted in Singapore using alleged workplace gender discrimination as the corporate misconduct (N = 461). Situational motivation in problem solving was found not only to predict customers’ issue-specific information forwarding behaviors, but also to predict their word-of-mouth motivations. However, only four of the tested WOM motivations were found to influence negative WOM, and outrage was found neither to impact WOM motivations nor behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.     

Long-Term Care Crisis in The Netherlands and Migration of Live-in Care Workers: Transnational Trajectories,Coping Strategies and Motivation Mixes

The crisis of the welfare state has generated a powerful pulling effect for contemporary intra-European migration flows. This article focuses on the migration of live-in care workers from Central and East European countries to the Netherlands, following the Dutch care reform. It explores the motivations and strategies of live-in migrant carers (LIMC) engaging in transnational mobility, aiming to understand how their agency is structured in multiple contexts. I am especially interested in transnational coping strategies and in how migrants pursue specific motivation mixes combining need and self-realization. The article draws on in-depth interviews with LIMC workers, triangulated with data from LIMC providers, family carers and other stakeholders. Participants use the LIMC jobs to cope with home and host country constraints, reconcile work and private life, and keep family ties. Continuous mobility is a strategic choice, which makes tough working conditions bearable and enables the achievement of long-term goals.     

Motivating Mormons

Despite numerous studies on motivation for generosity, much remains unknown. Given that the lion's share of giving and volunteering is directed toward religious institutions, we aimed to test the motivation for the generosity of Mormons. Previous research has indicated that Mormons (Latter‐day Saints) volunteer and donate at much higher levels than other groups. This study examined how self‐reported motivations to volunteer explain the annual number of hours volunteered and the likelihood of donating toward various causes. We used thirty qualitative interviews with Latter‐day Saints to create a comprehensive questionnaire measuring the time spent engaged in various volunteer activities and whether or not the respondents donated to various causes. The questionnaire also asked respondents to rank how important twenty‐five different motivations were to their service or volunteering. We used factor analysis of the results on the twenty‐five motivation items to identify underlying variables behind volunteer motivations, and we used the scores on the five resulting factors in multiple regression analyses to predict volunteer hours and logistic regression analyses to predict the likelihood of making donations. Different types of motivations predicted different types of volunteering and charitable giving. Theological motivations had the broadest impact and predicted religious volunteering, social volunteering to benefit church members, social volunteering through the church to benefit the community, religious donations, and donations toward social causes made through the church. After inserting control variables into our models, we found that none of the five types of motivations predicted secular volunteering or secular charitable giving. We conclude with managerial and conceptual implications of these and other results.     

“What’s on Your Mind?” Examining the Influence of Facebook User Motivations,Usage Intensity,and Public Self-Disclosure on Perceived Social Capital

ABSTRACT

This study examines the influence of user motivations and behaviors on perceptions of mutually beneficial social resources accessible via connections formed and maintained on Facebook. Survey data collected from undergraduate Facebook users were used to construct a multiple-group structural equation model of male (n = 109) and female (n = 187) users to assess the effects of motivations, usage intensity, and general public self-disclosure on users’ perceptions of bridging and bonding social capital. Results indicate that status and relationship formation motivations directly affect both dimensions of social capital for all users. Formation motivation was found to positively affect public self-disclosure for male users, and usage intensity was found to mediate the positive effect of user motivations on public self-disclosure for both groups. General self-disclosure on public Facebook profiles was found to positively affect perceived bridging capital and mediated the effect of formation motivation on bridging capital only for male users, while public self-disclosure was not found to significantly predict either dimension of social capital among female users. Findings are discussed within the theoretical framework of social capital and the hyperpersonal model of computer-mediated communication, and directions for future research are proposed.     

Motivations to become a master in social work: a typology of students

ABSTRACT

In the field of social work education, many studies address students’ motivations to become social workers. Most of these studies focus on bachelor‘s students in social work and confirm that altruistic and expressive motivations underlie students’ decisions to enter the social work profession. However, few studies focus on students earning a Master in Social Work (MSW). The purpose of this paper is to explore why students want to earn a master’s degree in social work. An online questionnaire was developed, and the results of six focus group discussions were used. The sample includes 116 graduates from the past 8 years and current students from the MSW programme at the University of Antwerp. We use exploratory factor analysis and identify two types of motivation. In line with earlier studies, we find that the first type is an expressive motivation. These students want to learn more about poverty and social justice and are motivated to improve the life conditions of vulnerable target groups. The second type is an instrumental motivation. These students are oriented towards the development of their professional careers.     

Personal and social motivations as predictors of substance use among college students.

The Drug Use Survey was administered via a direct mail to a simple random sample of 2200 students enrolled at a large southwestern U.S. university. A purpose of the study was to determine the predictability of self-reported drug use utilizing motivations (personal and social) commonly reported by substance users. Two subscales were developed, one for each category of motivations. Reliability for each subscale as estimated by coefficient alpha was .80 and .86, respectively. A series of step-wise multiple regression analyses were computed in which individual drug use indices served as criterion variables, while the predictor variables were the personal motivations subscale (PMS) and the social motivation subscale (SMS) for each model. The results indicated that the PMS was the stronger predictor in every model with the exception of the model that predicted the alcohol use index. The SMS was the best predictor for alcohol use.     

Economic mobility moderates the effect of relative deprivation on financial gambling motives and disordered gambling

This study examined whether a positive association between personal relative deprivation and disordered gambling severity is mediated by the motivation to gamble for financial gain. We hypothesized that this would occur specifically among people who perceived a low personal capacity for upward economic mobility via conventional means of advancement. A sample of community gamblers (N = 196) completed measures of personal relative deprivation, perceptions about upward economic mobility, gambling motivations (financial, coping, enhancement and social) and disordered gambling severity. The predicted moderated mediation model was observed – among people who perceived a low capacity for upward economic mobility, relative deprivation predicted disordered gambling severity via the motivation to gamble for financial gain. This indirect effect did not hold among people who perceived a high capacity for upward mobility. These findings suggest the importance of addressing beliefs about upward economic mobility in gambling prevention and intervention strategies. Among gamblers who feel relatively deprived, it may be advantageous to highlight feasible avenues for upward economic mobility that do not involve gambling.     

Ideas in action: the politics of Prussian child labor reform, 1817–1839

This article explains the political origins of an 1839 law regulating the factory employment of children in Prussia. The article has two aims. First, it seeks to explain why Prussia adopted the particular law that it did. Existing historical explanations of this particular policy change are not correct, largely because they fail to take into account the actual motivations and intentions of key reformers. Second, the article contributes to theories of the role of ideas in public policymaking. Ideas interact with institutional and political factors to serve as motivators and as resources for policy change. As motivators, they drive political action and shape the content of policy programs; as resources, they enable political actors to recruit supporters and forge alliances. I offer a theory of the relationship between ideas, motivation, and political action, and I develop a methodological framework for assessing the reliability of political actors’ expressed motivations. Further, I explain how political actors use ideas as resources by deploying three specific ideational strategies: framing, borrowing, and citing. By tracing how different understandings of the child labor problem motivated and were embodied in two competing child labor policy proposals, I show how the ideas underlying reform had significant consequences for policy outcomes.     

Foster Caregiver Motivation and Infant Attachment: How do Reasons for Fostering Affect Relationships?

This study reports the results of the effects of types of caregiver motivation to foster parent on the security of attachment of infants in care. Using the Motivations for Foster Parenting Inventory and the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure, the differences in motivation of kin and non-kin caregivers and the effects of motivation on security of attachment of 46 infants is reported. Result found that motivations to foster, such as the desire to increase family size, and social concern for the community, were significant predictors for secure attachment; while reasons for fostering such as spiritual expression, adoption, and replacement of a grown child, were predictors of insecure attachment. Research and practice implications are discussed. Susan A. Cole is an Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.     

Effects of Motivation on Charitable Giving Practices: The Case of Korean American Immigrants

This study empirically evaluates the effects of motivation for philanthropic giving on distinct charitable practices of immigrants, namely ethnic donation versus mainstream donation. The study pays special attention to three major types of motives: rational motives, normative motives, and civic duty. Based on the Korean-American Philanthropic Survey, the study constructs a bivariate probit regression model to assess the relationship between motivation and charitable practices. South Korean immigrants’ ethnic donation and their mainstream donation were explained by different types of motives: Normative motives represented the primary explanatory factor for ethnic donation, and civic duty motives represented the key factor for mainstream donation. However, rational motives were related to neither form of donation. There was a negative relationship between mainstream donation and ethnic donation.

     

WARM‐GLOW GIVING: EARNED MONEY AND THE OPTION TO TAKE

Giving in dictator games has been shown to vary with the nature of the endowment (earned vs. house money) and the action space (give only vs. the option to give or take). This article is the first to test if these factors similarly affect warm‐glow giving alone. There is no reason that one would expect the same outcomes given that the motivations for warm‐glow giving are different from the motivations for total (warm‐glow plus purely altruistic) giving. We find that warm‐glow giving to charity or philanthropic institutions in a real‐donation experiment increases when the endowment is earned. The option to take does reduce warm‐glow giving to charity, but significant giving remains. Our results suggest that donating earned income creates greater utility than donating an equal amount from a windfall gain, and that warm glow comes not merely from the act of giving, but also from the characteristics of the recipient. (JEL C90, D64, H41)     

Combining child welfare and substance abuse services: a blended model of intervention

Montgomery County, Maryland's Child Welfare Services (CWS) and Adult Addiction Services (AAS) developed an initiative to address the requirements of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) while meeting the needs of families and the community of providers. A blended model of intervention was determined to be the best strategy to achieve the dual mandates of CWS and alcohol and other drugs (AOD) providers. Drawing from criminal justice, systems theory, social work, and addiction treatment, the approach made use of graduated sanctions or levels of intensity in providing services, engaging client participation, and engendering motivation. This article proposes strategies at client and organizational levels to understand the process of adaptation to ASFA and to guide planning for blending services.