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INDIVIDUALISM AND GOOD WORKS
Cultural Variation in Giving and Volunteering Across the United States
MARKUS KEMMELMEIER
EDINA E. JAMBOR
JOYCE LETNER
University of Nevada
Building on previous research by Allik and Realo and Conway, Ryder, Tweed, and Sokol, the present
study investigates whether cultural individualism is related to greater levels of prosocial behavior toward
strangers. Focusing on regional variations within the United States, the authors found individualism to be
positively related to charitable giving and volunteerism such that both were more likely to occur in more
individualist states. Differentiating between different types of charitable causes, the authors found that
cultural individualism was primarily related to giving to and volunteering for causes that were compatible with core individualist values, whereas no such relationship was found for religious causes and nonreligious cause that did not incorporate values of individualism.
Keywords: individualism; volunteering; culture; altruism
Charitable giving and volunteering is of central importance to the functioning of most
modern societies. Volunteers provide a variety of services benefiting the greater public—
services that might not exist otherwise. Likewise, donations support individuals, groups, and
organizations, which promote social welfare through their work in a broad range of domains.
In the United States, a country in which volunteering is heavily studied, roughly 84 million
adults (44% of the adult population older than age 21) say they volunteer an average of
almost 4 hours a week—an economic value of approximately $240 billion (Independent
Sector, 2004). Likewise, in 2001, 89% of all American households contributed an average of
$1,620 to charitable causes (Independent Sector, 2004). Similarly high levels have been
reported for Canada (e.g., McKeown, 2000). Such data seem to suggest that North
Americans are not only generous with their time and money but also that they do care about
members of their communities, as giving and volunteering often occurs to the benefit of
strangers. In the present article, we examine the cultural underpinning of such prosocial
actions. We argue that patterns of giving and volunteering are shaped by core cultural values
of individualism, such as self-actualization, individual achievement, and personal autonomy.
At first blush, the high levels of giving and volunteering in the United States and Canada
seem to be incompatible with the idea that both societies are among the most individualist
societies on earth (e.g., Hofstede, 2001; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002).1 Indeed,
the cultural ideology of individualism has often been associated with the pursuit of one’s
self-interest rather than group interest (e.g., Earley, 1989; Gelfand, Triandis, & Chan, 1996;
Sampson, 1977), narcissism (Lasch, 1978), and indifference to or even hostility toward
one’s community and its institutions (e.g., Hogan, 1975; Slater, 1976; see Lukes, 1973
for an overview). To the extent that the United States is really, according to widespread
JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 37 No. 3, May 2006 327-344
DOI: 10.1177/0022022106286927
© 2006 Sage Publications
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conceptualizations of individualism, the pinnacle of individualism, Americans and people
from other individualist societies should be unlikely to engage in prosocial acts, least of all
toward anonymous members of their community. Some theorists have even linked individualism to various social ills, including reluctance to commit to relationships (Dion & Dion,
1996), loneliness (Triandis, Leung, Villareal, & Clack, 1985), alienation, and high crime
and divorce rates (e.g., Etzioni, 1993; Naroll, 1983). Although certain excessive forms of
individualism may indeed be detrimental to community life, we argue that the cultural phenomenon of individualism is not inherently antithetical to community involvement and
prosocial action (see also Allik & Realo, 2004). Rather, we aim to show that cultural individualism has the potential of promoting charitable giving and volunteerism.
It is a misconception that cultural individualism is incompatible with community
involvement and group life. At the most general level, if individualism describes a cultural
worldview, as proposed by eminent theorists such as Hofstede (2001) or Triandis (1995),
and not only individual preferences, it is by definition shared within a collective. That is,
individualists can be assumed to exist within a community that shares their individualist
values and practices. As such, individualism can bring a community together rather than
dividing it. Direct support for this idea comes from Jetten, Postmes, and McAuliffe (2002),
who showed that, among Americans, those who are highly identified with their nation are
more likely to endorse the dominant cultural values of individualism than those who are
lower identifiers. Such findings cast individualism as a collective phenomenon, which
characterizes the way of life of a collective rather than an antagonistic disposition of individuals toward it (see Oyserman et al., 2002; Sampson, 1988).
Given that cultural individualism is not antithetical to one’s investment in an individualist collective, such groups may nevertheless sanction the pursuit of one’s own self-interest—
with potential implications for prosocial action. For instance, some research on social
dilemmas suggests that individualist actors are less cooperative because they are primarily
concerned with their own benefit (e.g., De Cremer & van Lange, 2001; McClintock &
Liebrand, 1988; see also Utz, 2004). However, there is much evidence that prosocial action
occurs for a number of different reasons, including both selfish and altruistic ones (e.g.,
Batson, 1994; Oliner, 2002; Schroeder, Penner, Dovidio, & Piliavin, 1995; van de Vliert,
Huang, & Levine, 2004; Wuthnow, 1991). In the context of their research on volunteerism in
the United States, Clary and Snyder (1999; Clary et al., 1998) identified six functions that
volunteerism served for the individual, five of which were highly individualist in nature in
that they promoted the individual in one way or another. First, volunteering served as a means
to learn about the cause or organization for which they were volunteering. Second, especially
for students, it was a means of furthering their own careers, for instance, by getting their foot
in the door at a place where they would like to be employed. Third, volunteering also served
to further personal growth, enabling individuals to feel better about themselves. Fourth, volunteer activity also allowed a great deal of self-expression in that individuals were able to
enact deeply held values and convictions. Last, volunteering offers individuals an escape
from personal problems and even allows them to assuage personal feelings of guilt about
social inequality. This list clearly harkens themes of individual achievement, self-actualization,
and self-promotion that are deemed central to cultural individualism (e.g., Bellah, Madsen,
Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985; Oyserman et al., 2002; Triandis, 1995). That is, to the
extent that individualists feel that they benefit from prosocial action, it is plausible to expect
them to be involved in prosocial activities such as volunteerism.
Waterman (1981, 1984) offered a very different conceptualization focusing on the ethical
implications of individualism. According to this author, individualism entails an emphasis on
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personal development and self-improvement (e.g., to develop one’s own potential). With
regard to ethics, individualist self-actualization is unlikely to be aimed at narcissistic hedonism; rather, it promotes the goal to live one’s life as a responsible and conscientious citizen
who is able to make informed ethical choices.2 Thus, according to Waterman, prosocial action
for individualists is a matter of personal responsibility. Also, individualism tends to champion
a universalist human ethic that stresses individuals’ dignity and human rights (Schwartz, 1990;
Triandis, 1995). Because in individualist contexts personal values and preferences serve as the
proper basis for one’s actions (e.g., Triandis, 1989; Ybarra & Trafimow, 1998), prosocial
action becomes a matter of principled decision making, which has to take into account one’s
value commitments and individual responsibilities (Waterman, 1984). Waterman argued that
these factors should increase social interdependence and prosocial behavior and reviewed evidence that is consistent with this notion (Waterman, 1984). In brief, this conception of individualism highlights that individualism promotes rather than hinders social welfare.
Although in individualist societies prosocial behavior is viewed primarily as a matter of
individual agency, in collectivist societies acts of helping are often matters of normative
ingroup solidarity. Regardless of their personal preferences, individuals are expected to
support members of their ingroup (e.g., Eckstein, 2001; Freeberg & Stein, 1996). This
“mechanical solidarity,” as Durkheim (1893/1964) termed it, entails that in collectivist societies ingroup-outgroup boundaries are more firmly drawn (Iyengar, Lepper, & Ross, 1999;
Schwartz, 1990), with helping being given primarily to the ingroup. This starkly contrasts
with individualism’s focus on individuals, who are valued and considered deserving apart
from their group memberships (cf. Kemmelmeier, 2003). This implies that collectivists
should be less likely to extend a helping hand to strangers and other non-ingroup members.
Perhaps more than the pursuit of one’s self-interest, modern varieties of individualism
entail the ideas of personal independence and self-determination rather than submission to
tradition or authority (e.g., Gelfand et al., 1996; Kemmelmeier, Burnstein, & Peng, 1999;
Kemmelmeier, Wieczorkowska, Erb, & Burnstein, 2002; Sampson, 1977; Triandis, 1995).
Individualists value choosing their own goals and their own way of life (Markus, Mullally,
& Kitayama, 1997). As a result, they are not likely to subordinate their personal goals to
that of a group or to enter situations in which their own outcomes are interdependent with
those of others. Moreover, to an individualist, personal choice is often not merely a cherished privilege but a reflection of his or her own authentic self (Markus et al., 1997). In
other words, one’s choices show who one really is. Because personal self-determination is
so critical to individualists, it is hardly surprising that among individualists, but not among
collectivists, the perception of choice and control over one’s fate is linked to greater wellbeing (Sastry & Ross, 1998) and enhanced personal motivation (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999).
The impact of individualist self-determination is perhaps nowhere more apparent than
with regard to the family (e.g., Scanzoni, 1975). Collectivists tend to have larger families,
often with multiple generations living under the same roof (Triandis, 1995). By contrast,
individualists tend to view these traditional family living arrangements as constraining and
often seek arrangements that allow them the pursuit of personal goals, such as their career
(e.g., Waite, Goldscheider, & Witsberger, 1986). Furthermore, individualists tend to be
more willing to dissolve personal relationships, such as through divorce, if they are no
longer satisfying (e.g., Bohle, 1994; Etzioni, 1993). Thus, the individualist emphasis on personal choice and self-determination is reflected in higher divorce rates and larger numbers
of people living alone (e.g., Kemmelmeier & Uz, 2005; Vandello & Cohen, 1999).
It is critical to note, however, that the individualist emphasis on personal self-determination
may or may not lead to socially undesirable consequences, such as greater selfishness. If, as
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argued by Waterman (1981, 1984), individualists try to improve themselves, and if they tend
to endorse a universalist ethic, making ethically sound choices is key to the process of selfactualization. That is, because personal choices are an expression of one’s moral character,
individualists may reject selfish goals in favor of highly communal, and even altruistic, ones.
So individualists may choose to become involved in their community or choose to build committed interpersonal relationships with others (Bellah et al., 1985; Sampson, 1988; Wuthnow,
1991). de Tocqueville’s (1835/1969) early observations and more recent data by Curtis and
colleagues (Curtis, Baer, & Grabb, 2001; Curtis, Grabb, & Baer, 1992) concerning the
importance of voluntary association memberships in American life highlight the importance
of individual self-determination in U.S. social relations. This leads to the expectation that
people in individualist societies such as the United States elect to contribute to communal
causes to the extent that this engagement occurs voluntarily and is not dictated by forces
external to the individual (e.g., social norms). This voluntaristic stance is markedly different
from collectivist societies in which helping often occurs based on normative expectations or
because of a sense of obligation toward ingroup members (e.g., Eckstein, 2001; JanoffBulman & Leggatt, 2002; Miller & Bersoff, 1998; Miller, Bersoff, & Harwood, 1990). Thus,
because charitable giving and volunteering are prosocial actions that people may choose to
engage in and because such actions benefit strangers rather than ingroup members, we expect
both forms of assistance to be more prevalent in individualist societies than in collectivist
societies.
The voluntaristic approach of individualist societies also entails that individuals are
able to select to whom they want to offer a helping hand. Indeed, previous research shows
that, compared to people in collectivist societies, those in individualist societies tend to
be highly discriminating in choosing whom they support. For instance, whether people in
individualist societies help or not depends on whether they like the prospective recipients
of help or whether they consider them deserving, whereas such factors play much less of
a role for people in collectivist societies (e.g., Miller & Bersoff, 1998; Miller et al., 1990).
A similar stance should also be found with regard to whom individualists choose to support such that causes that are compatible with individualist values of self-determination,
self-promotion, or self-actualization are the most likely recipients of support.
THE PRESENT STUDY
In the present study, we sought to investigate regional variations in giving and volunteering across the different states of the United States. The United States is particularly suited for
such an analysis because state-level averages of giving and volunteering are publicly available, along with a state-level indicator of individualism proposed by Vandello and Cohen
(1999). Focusing on various social practices, these authors demonstrated a substantial amount
of variation in individualism across different U.S. states whose effects have been shown to be
similar to international variations in individualism (e.g., Allik & Realo, 2004; Conway,
Ryden, Tweed, & Sokol, 2001; Kemmelmeier, Wieczorkowska, et al. 2002). We related this
intranational variation in individualism to data on giving and volunteering obtained from a
nationally representative survey that included respondents from most U.S. states. Based on
the above reasoning, we predicted that giving and volunteering are more prevalent in individualist states than in collectivist ones even when plausible confounds are controlled.
By focusing on giving and volunteering, we investigate cultural influences on two very
different kinds of prosocial action. Volunteering requires a good deal of behavioral planning
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and often entails a commitment for an extended period of time. At the same time, volunteering
often entails close interpersonal interaction with the needy or other beneficiaries of volunteer
services. Charitable giving, on the other hand, requires comparatively minimal planning and
commitment, which allows donors to remain fairly removed from the cause they wish to
support if they so choose.
In the present investigation, we also examine two moderators of the relationship between
cultural values and prosocial behavior toward strangers. First, we expected giving to and
volunteering for religious organizations to be unrelated to cultural values. Contributions to
religious organizations are likely to occur because individuals contribute to their congregations, thus disqualifying them as cases of stranger-on-stranger helping (e.g., Wuthnow,
1999). Indeed, because collectivism emphasizes commitment to one’s ingroup, one could
argue that collectivism, and not individualism, should predict these types of assistance
extended by members to their congregations.3 However, we find it more plausible that the
dimension of individualism-collectivism is unrelated to giving to and volunteering for religious organizations mainly because, in such cases, engaging in good works is frequently not
a matter of individual choice. There are often clear expectations with regard to how and how
much members are to contribute to their congregations (i.e., tithing). Such norms are likely
to minimize the influence of cultural values on giving and volunteering because they do
not permit the individual to choose freely between different courses of action. Given our
emphasis on individualism and its voluntaristic approach to prosocial action, we expect
individualism to be of little influence when social-contextual forces are strong (e.g., church
members tithing to comply with the shared expectations of their ingroup). Conversely, when
social-contextual forces are weak and decisions are freely made (e.g., when individuals
decide whether to send a check to an arts education program), the influence of individualism should be particularly visible.
Second, to the extent that cultural individualism serves as a basis for giving and volunteering, we expect its influence to be stronger for nonreligious causes that are consistent
with an individualist worldview. Specifically, causes that champion or represent individualist values of personal development, self-determination, and individual achievement
should be particularly likely to receive support in individualist states but less likely to
receive much support in collectivist states. Specifically, individualism should predict
support of the arts and recreational activities as they reflect aspects of individuals’ selfactualization. Individualism should also be related to the support of educational causes and
youth development programs because both reflect an emphasis on personal development.
And last, educational and other career-related causes should be supported by individualists
because they are compatible with the notion of individual achievement. At the same time,
compared to the above individualist causes, we expected individualism to be a much
weaker predictor of other causes, which do not necessarily reflect specific individualist
concerns. Surely, given our argument above, individualists could be expected to support
causes such as health care or human services based on their desire to act responsibly and
ethically (cf. Waterman, 1984). However, we are merely arguing that individualists’ tendency to engage in prosocial behavior should be strongest when it supports causes that also
connect with cherished values and concerns.
Note that our investigation is not the first to tackle the cultural bases of community
involvement and prosocial action. Some social scientists have long presupposed volunteerism to be of a distinctly individualist origin (e.g., Wuthnow, 1991), yet there has been
very little empirical evidence to support this idea (see the critique by Eckstein, 2001). This
only changed very recently, when Allik and Realo (2004) demonstrated in international
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comparisons as well as within-U.S. comparisons that individualism was related to greater
levels of social capital. Because the social capital construct refers to formal and informal
community networks, the Putnam 2000 index of social capital used by Allik and Realo also
included 1 item referring to volunteerism (out of 14 items), but no separate analyses were
reported. Charitable giving was not addressed in Allik and Realo’s study. Furthermore,
Conway et al. (2001) found that Levine, Martinez, Brase, and Sorenson’s (1994) index of
interpersonal helping, composed of six diverse helping behaviors, correlated with state levels of individualism. Although this study did not focus on volunteering, Levine et al.’s data
included information on charitable giving to one organization (United Way), which
Conway et al. found to be related to individualism. Apart from the fact that these data only
focused on one specific charitable organization, the generalizability of Conway et al.’s
findings is limited by the fact that Levine et al.’s data pertain to only 17 of the 50 U.S.
states. Also, their data were collected exclusively in urban, but not rural, areas. Given that
U.S. states vary dramatically in their rates of urbanization (ranging from 38% to 94% in
the states included in the present study), the extent to which each of their data point represents the state as a whole varies considerably. The present investigation overcomes these
shortcomings by relying on representative data and by analyzing state levels of giving and
volunteering separately for a wide array of causes.
METHOD
SAMPLE AND DATA
For the present investigation, we relied on the 1999 installment of Giving and Volunteering
in the United States, a biannually conducted national study conducted by the Gallup
Organization for the Independent Sector (2000). This study used a multistage random sampling procedure to obtain nationally representative data on charitable giving and volunteering. The sampling procedure was identical to the one used for the Gallup Organization’s
regular national surveys of adults but was supplemented by special purpose samples of
targeted population (“Blacks,” “Hispanics,” and the “affluent”; see Independent Sector,
2000). All interviews were conducted over the phone from May through July 1999. The
resulting data set included 2,553 respondents from 40 of the 50 U.S. states.4 Because some
populations were oversampled, a sampling weight was used to render this data set representative of the U.S. population of noninstitutionalized adults 18 years of age or older.
Note that the number of respondents randomly drawn from each state differed dramatically, ranging from 8 (Rhode Island) to 247 (California). This variation resulted from the fact
that the sample as a whole was designed to be representative of the United States, implying
that the size of each state-level sample was roughly proportional to the state’s population
share. Because the present analyses focus on state-level data, the unequal sample size represents a potential source of distortion because the reliability (and standard error) of each state
mean necessarily varies with the number of cases on which it is based. To adjust for unequal
state-level sample sizes, all analyses reported here were performed on weighted data.
VARIABLES
Volunteering. In the 1999 Giving and Volunteering survey, respondents indicated whether
they had worked in some way to help others for no monetary pay. Specifically, respondents
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reviewed a list of causes or types of organizations and indicated whether they had volunteered
in the 12 months prior to the interview. The list of causes or types of organizations included
(a) arts, culture, and humanities; (b) education; (c) recreation (adults); (d) work-related organizations; (e) youth development; (f) the environment; (g) health organizations; (h) human
services; (i) international causes; (j) political organizations; (k) private and community foundations; (l) public/societal benefit; (m) religious organizations; and (n) other (see Wuthnow,
1999, for examples of specific organizations and their categorization). Furthermore, respondents indicated whether they had volunteered informally, that is, outside of the context of a
formal organization. The correlations between the state-level proportions of volunteers for
each of these causes are displayed in the upper half of Table 1. We performed a principal components analysis (PCA) on these data and found the Eigenvalue of the first factor to be more
than 5 times greater than the second factor. This dominant factor accounted for almost 52%
of the overall variance in volunteering between states.
Charitable donations. Respondents also indicated whether they had contributed any
money to charitable organizations or causes. Specifically, for each type of organization or
cause listed above (except work-related organizations and political causes), respondents
indicated whether they had contributed money during 1998. For all individual-level
responses, we aggregated the data such that we computed state-level proportions based
on the respondents from a particular state. The correlations between the state-level proportions of donors for each of these causes are displayed in the lower half of Table 1. A
PCA performed on these data also revealed a dominant factor (identified by an Eigenvalue
3 times greater than that of the next factor), which captured roughly 44% of the overall
variance.
Individualism-collectivism. From Vandello and Cohen (1999), we obtained a collectivism score for each state. Because Vandello and Cohen treat individualism and collectivism as opposite ends of the same underlying continuum, for the present purpose the
original collectivism index was reversed, with higher values indicating higher levels of
individualism and vice versa. Note that Vandello and Cohen’s unidimensional interpretation of the individualism-collectivism construct is acceptable for the characterization of
cultural units, but at the individual level of measurement, a multidimensional view of individualism and collectivism is more appropriate (Leung, 1989; Triandis, 1989).
Specifically, the Vandello and Cohen index is based on the following eight variables:
(a) the percentage of people living alone, (b) the ratio of divorce rate to marriage rate,
(c) the percentage of elderly people living alone, (d) the percentage of people with no religious affiliation, (e) the average percentage of votes for the Libertarian party during the
past four presidential elections,5 (f) the percentage of self-employed people, (g) the ratio
of people carpooling to work compared to those driving alone, and (h) the percentage of
households with grandchildren in them. (With the exception of the last two variables,
higher values indicate higher levels of individualism.) The index has a standardized
Cronbach’s α = .71, and was scaled to have a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 20.
Control variables. Previous research had demonstrated that helping behavior is
influenced by personal affluence, degree of urbanization, and the climate (cf. Levine,
Norenzayan, & Philbrick, 2001; van de Vliert et al., 2004); therefore, these variables were
controlled in our analyses. First, to tap personal affluence, we used the state average of
TABLE 1
334
.51
NA
.27
(9) International/foreign
organizations
(10) Political organizations
(11) Private/community
foundations
—
.56
.38
.04
.68
.12
NA
.57
.62
.61
.57
.76
NA
.56
.29
.04
–.10
.33
.29
NA
.30
.51
.42
.19
.61
NA
—
.60
.62
(3)
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
—
.59
.66
.70
(4)
.67
.44
–.09
.61
.18
NA
.51
.68
.50
.48
—
.69
.56
.66
.65
(5)
.33
.13
.24
.47
.01
NA
.15
.51
.55
—
.45
.43
.48
.75
.59
(6)
.47
.21
.23
.43
.02
NA
.17
.72
—
.45
.59
.40
.35
.50
.64
(7)
.43
.31
.10
.60
–.11
NA
.22
—
.71
.54
.69
.61
.38
.54
.62
(8)
.48
.51
–.05
.31
.40
NA
—
.44
.56
.59
.33
.29
.32
.48
.62
(9)
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
—
.34
.244
.08
.48
.37
.54
.60
.40
.51
(10)
.23
.29
–.02
–.13
—
–.04
–.02
.17
–.01
–.05
.39
.27
–.08
.11
.09
(11)
.45
.24
.09
—
.02
.80
.50
.53
.36
.59
.58
.62
.73
.56
.69
(12)
.05
.01
—
.03
.06
.05
–.01
.11
.08
.17
.05
.04
.17
.25
.13
(13)
.49
—
.08
.54
.13
.42
.51
.69
.51
.65
.64
.61
.39
.71
.66
(14)
—
.72
.08
.68
.05
.57
.48
.67
.51
.63
.67
.78
.64
.64
.76
(15)
NOTE: N = 40. NA = not applicable. Coefficients above the diagonal represent intercorrelations between the state-level proportions of volunteers for different types of causes.
Coefficients below the diagonal represent intercorrelations between the state-level proportions of donors for different types of causes. Italicized coefficients (between Variables 1–5)
represent intercorrelations between giving to and volunteering for individualist causes (see Results section).
.31
.52
(8) Human services
.58
.49
(7) Health organizations
(15) Informal
.55
(6) Environment
(14) Religious organizations
.66
(5) Youth development
.50
NA
(4) Work-related
organizations
.01
.59
(3) Recreation (adult)
(13) Other
.75
(2) Education
.74
(2)
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(12) Public/society benefit
—
(1) Arts, culture, and
humanities
(1)
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personal income in 1999 (Almanac of the 50 States, 2001). Because charitable giving and,
to some extent, volunteering may be primarily a function of one’s disposable income rather
than absolute level of income, we also controlled for the 1999 cost of living index for each
state (CQ’s State Fact Finder, 2002).
Second, to address urbanization, from the 2000 U.S. Census, we computed the percentage of individuals within each state who live in urban areas. Last, to address the potential influence of climate, we used the average daily mean temperature for each state,
averaged for 9 years, from 1990 to 1998. These data were obtained from the Web site of
the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (www.ncdc.noaa.gov).
RESULTS
Across states, giving and volunteering were reliably related, r = .73, p < .001. This correlation is high enough to suggest that giving and volunteering are both reflective of a
prosocial orientation toward aiding strangers, yet it is low enough to highlight that charitable giving and volunteerism reflect different ways in which individuals contribute to their
communities.
For a preliminary test of our hypotheses, we examined zero-order correlations between
individualism and giving and volunteering. Individualism was reliably related to charitable
giving such that there were more donors in high-individualism states, r(40) = .33, p = .04.
Although the correlation coefficient for individualism and volunteering was also positive,
it did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance, r(40) = .20, p = .21.
However, because of the correlated nature of our two outcome variables and to control
the influence of extraneous variables, we conducted a series of linear mixed model analyses. This approach allows the simultaneous regression of multiple dependent variables on
a set of predictors (“repeated measures regression”) and permits researchers to examine
whether a given predictor is differentially related to the outcome variables. The procedure
is based on an iterative maximum likelihood estimation procedure. All linear mixed model
analyses were carried out using SPSS 12.0.2’s MIXED procedure (Norusis, 2003).
In the first model (Model 1), we predicted state levels of giving and volunteering from
individualism while controlling for income, cost of living, urban population, and average
temperature.6 As expected, individualism was a significant predictor of giving and volunteering, F(1, 34) = 4.39, p = .044. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that individualism had
a significant impact on both charitable giving, b = .0086, p = .032, and approached significance for volunteering, b = .0069, p = .081 (see top row of Table 2). These coefficients indicate that for every additional point on Vandello and Cohen’s (1999) individualism measure,
the percentage of donors within a state increases by almost 1%, whereas the percentage of
volunteers increases by roughly 0.7%. Because a nonsignificant interaction term indicated
that these coefficients were not reliably different from each other, F < 1, this model supports
our contention that individualism is an antecedent of both giving and volunteering.
Recall, however, that we expected the link between prosocial action and individualism to
be moderated by type of cause. Thus, we generated a second linear mixed model (Model 2)
that allowed us to examine the influence of individualism on giving and volunteering
separately for nonreligious causes and religious causes while partialing out the influence
of our control variables. To accommodate the fact that not all good works occur within the
context of formal organizations, we included additional dependent variables that tapped
informal giving and volunteering. That is, this linear mixed model examined the predictive
∪
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TABLE 2
Predicting Volunteering and Charitable Giving as a Function
of Individualism: Simple Effects From Linear Mixed Models
Dependent Variables
Proportion of Volunteers
Causes
Model 1
Overall effect
Model 2
Nonreligious organizations
Religious organizations
Informal
b
Proportion of Donors
SE
b
SE
.0069*
.0039
.0086**
.0039
.0069**
.0021
.0080***
.0030
.0030
.0030
.0099***
.0006
.0013
.0030
.0030
.0030
NOTE: N = 40. Entries reflect (nonstandardized) regression coefficients for individualism from linear mixed
models. Both linear mixed models used a compound symmetry matrix as error structure to represent the correlated nature of different observations pertaining to the same case. As a result, all simple effect coefficients
gleaned from the same model have virtually identical standard errors.
*p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01.
influence of individualism on a total of 2 (giving vs. volunteering) × 3 (type of cause: religious, nonreligious, informal) dependent variables. Because average temperature was not
significant as a covariate, neither as main effect nor in interaction with income (cf. van de
Vliert et al., 2004), and because its exclusion slightly lowered the information statistics
used to assess model fit (e.g., –2 restricted log likelihood, Akaike’s information criterion),
it was excluded from the final model.
As expected, there was an interaction involving individualism and type of case, F(2,
192) = 5.36, p = .005. This interaction indicated that individualism had a significant effect
on giving and volunteering when these good works occur for the benefit of a nonreligious
organization but not when they occurred for a religious organization or informally. This
two-way interaction was further qualified by a three-way interaction, indicating that the
influence of individualism tended to depend on both the type of cause as well the kind of
assistance provided, F(2, 192) = 2.58, p = .08. The lower part of Table 2 summarizes the
simple effect coefficients gleaned from this model, representing the impact of individualism on each of the six dependent variables. Clearly, there is a lot of evidence to confirm
our expectations. Individualism predicted charitable giving (p < .01) and volunteerism
(p < .05) for nonreligious organizations but not for religious organizations. Unexpectedly,
we also found that informal volunteering was reliably related to individualism (p < .01),
but a parallel effect was not present for giving.
In a next step, we sought to establish whether giving and volunteering to nonreligious
organizations would be particularly pronounced when the cause of this organization was
compatible with individualist values and concerns. For this purpose, we generated another
set of linear mixed models in which we regressed volunteering (Model 3) and giving
(Model 4) for each type of cause assessed in our data on individualism, again partialing
out our controls.7 (Temperature was not significant as a main effect covariate nor in interaction with income; because its exclusion did affect model fit, this variable was again
excluded from the final models reported here.)
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TABLE 3
Predictors of State-Level Volunteerism and State-Level Charitable Giving in
Specific Types of Nonreligious Causes as a Function of Individualism
Causes
Individualist causes
Arts, culture, and humanities
Education
Recreation (adult)
Work-related organizations
Youth development
Control causes
Environment
Health organizations
Human services
International/foreign organizations
Political organizations
Private/community foundations
Public/society benefit
Other
Model 3
Proportion of Volunteers
Model 4
Proportion of Donors
b
b
.0018
.0026*
.0016
.0033**
.0019
.0048**
.0046**
.0027
.0011
.0015
.0005
.0009
.0005
.0005
.0003
.0011
.0058**
.0023
.0028
.0022
.0046**
.0013
.0026
.0006
NOTE: Entries reflect (nonstandardized) regression coefficients for individualism from linear mixed models. Both
linear mixed models used a compound symmetry matrix as error structure to represent the correlated nature of different observations pertaining to the same case. As a result, all simple effect coefficients gleaned from the same
model have virtually identical standard errors. The standard error for Model 3 coefficients is SE = .00133; for
Model 4 coefficients, SE = .0018.
*p < .10. **p < .05.
The left column of Table 3 displays the effect of individualism on volunteering for each
of 13 types of causes. Although only one of the coefficients displayed reached conventional levels of significance, notice that the coefficients for our individualist causes are
consistently higher than those for control causes. Specifically, individualism was more
strongly related to volunteering for educational organizations, youth development causes,
recreational organizations, and work-related causes than it was to any of the other causes
assessed. To model these differences in the size of the individualism coefficients, we performed a planned contrast analysis within the context of Model 3, comparing the average
coefficients for individualist causes to the average coefficients for control causes. This
analysis produced the expected individualism by cause category interaction, F(1, 478) =
3.98, p = .047; whereas individualism did have an impact on volunteering for individualist causes, b = .0022, SE = .0010, p = .042, it did not affect volunteering for control causes,
b = .0007, SE = .0010, p = .49. This analysis confirms our prediction that individualist values are more predictive of volunteering when the latter occurs for the benefit of causes that
are consistent with or represent important individualist concerns.
The right column of Table 3 displays the effect of individualism on giving for each of
11 types of causes (Model 4). Individualism has a reliable effect on giving to 3 of 4 individualist causes, with only the coefficient for recreational causes failing to reach statistical
significance, p < .14. Compared to this, the coefficients for control causes tended to be
lower and did not reach significance—with one notable exception: Individualism predicted
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giving to environmental causes, p = .002. Although this finding was surprising, we speculate
that it is because of the fact that individualist values and environmental concern are frequently
found to be part of the same value cluster. For instance, Inglehart and Oyserman (2004)
argued that cultural individualism is, at least in part, a function of a society’s economic
development. The experience of prosperity frees individuals from the daily struggle for
survival and allows them to focus on less materialist and more idealist goals and concerns,
such as self-actualization and personal choice, as well as concern for the environment (see also
Inglehart, 1997; Kemmelmeier, Król, & Kim, 2002). Thus, we find it plausible that there is an
indirect link between individualism and charitable giving for environmental causes.
Last, for Model 4, we performed the same planned contrast analyses as for Model 3,
comparing the individualism coefficients for giving to individualist causes with those for
unclassified causes. The expected individualism by cause category interaction was not
significant, F(1, 398) = 1.76, p = .19. Nevertheless, the pattern of simple effects was as
expected: On average, individualism did have a reliable effect on giving to individualist
causes, b = .0037, SE = .0014, p = .007, whereas the parallel effect for unclassified causes
did not reach statistical significance, b = .0020, SE = .0012, p = .09.8 This represents partial support for our notion that individualism tends to be more strongly related to causes
that reflect uniquely individualist concerns.
DISCUSSION
In past decades, theorists have decried the evils of individualism as a selfish orientation
that is inherently opposed to community (e.g., Hogan, 1975; Lasch, 1978; Slater, 1976).
Likewise, a literature in the social sciences pits individualism against communitarianism,
suggesting that individualism alienates people and destroys the common good (e.g.,
Etzioni, 1993). The present findings, however, starkly contrast with these ideas. Extending
earlier research by Allik and Realo (2004) and Conway et al. (2001), our study found that
individualism was related to both higher levels of giving and volunteering across the
United States. Both types of prosocial behavior tend to benefit strangers, reflecting an
engagement in the community to the benefit of the community. Thus, our results do not
support the notion that individualism is antithetical to community. Quite to the contrary,
our work is consistent with Waterman (1981, 1984), who championed the prosocial consequences of individualism. According to his reasoning, not egotism but personal responsibility paired with the desire to live one’s life as an ethical actor seems to be the active
ingredient of individualism, providing the basis for a prosocial orientation that is expressed
as charitable giving and volunteering. The present results are also compatible with a functionalist approach to volunteering (Clary et al., 1998; Clary & Snyder, 1999) if one takes
into account that the list of functions of prosocial behavior is more likely to reflect concerns that are central to individualism. Especially from this perspective, it is clear that even
though involvement in the community may indeed serve a person’s self-actualization or
self-promotion, prosocial actions based on such concerns may help build community
rather than act as an obstacle to it (Omoto & Snyder, 2002).
Although in our study individualism helped shape patterns of giving and volunteering in
a similar way, people in individualist states were not always more likely to provide assistance than those in collectivist states. The specific types of causes mattered. First, overall
there was no evidence that the support of religious causes varied as a function of individualism. This is likely a reflection of the fact that much of the donations and volunteer services
benefit the donors’ or volunteers’ own congregations (e.g., Wuthnow, 1999), and hence they
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significantly differ from other forms of prosocial actions that occur between strangers.
Furthermore, in the context of religious organizations, there are often specific expectations
with regard to members’ contribution to the community, which may render giving and
volunteering independent from prevailing cultural values.
Second, consistent with earlier research on prosocial action (e.g., Miller & Bersoff,
1998; Miller et al., 1990), we found individualist societies to be selective with regard to
the causes they support. People in highly individualist states were generally more likely to
volunteer for and give money to types of causes that represent individualist values: specifically, self-actualization, personal growth and development, and individual achievement.
By contrast, support of types of causes that did not clearly reflect such values was mostly
unrelated to individualism. This pattern highlights that values may induce a certain selectivity with regard to the beneficiaries of one’s own prosocial behavior. As the U.S. senator
and former presidential candidate John Kerry put it, “Values are something that you live in
the choices of your budget, in the people that you help” (Horsley, 2004). Similarly, the present findings corroborate that individualist values primarily influence attitudes and behavior to the extent that the former are applicable to the latter (e.g., Kemmelmeier, 2001;
Kemmelmeier et al., 1999; Kemmelmeier, Wieczorkowska, et al., 2002).
Interestingly, we also found evidence that people in individualist states were more
likely to volunteer than those in collectivist ones when the behavior occurred informally,
that is, outside of the context of a formal organization. This result appears particularly surprising in light of Wilson and Musick’s (1997) observation that informal helping tends to
be more driven by a sense of obligation than is volunteering in a formal context. We should
not forget, however, that individualism and collectivism do not necessarily differ in determining whether individuals feel a sense of obligation toward close others (Janoff-Bulman &
Leggatt, 2002). Given a similar sense of obligation, it is possible that the individualist
emphasis on self-determination and individual responsibility makes them more likely to
take the initiative and provide that helping hand to a friend or family member. Another possibility is, however, that individualists are simply more likely than collectivists to describe
informal acts of assistance as “volunteering”—a term that presumably describes planned
prosocial behavior that is somewhat unusual and that a respondent would not engage in
under normal circumstances. Janoff-Bulman and Leggatt (2002) reported that individualists are more likely than collectivists to perceive a contradiction between an obligation and
the personal desire to help close others. Hence, given the same actions, individualists may
be more likely to feel that they sacrificed their own time and energy for others, whereas
collectivists feel that they helped friends or family because they wanted to and because it
comes naturally to them.
Given that we found individualism to be related to higher levels of giving and volunteering, does this mean that people in individualist states are more helpful or more caring than
people in collectivist states? Such a conclusion is hardly warranted. First, the present study
examined state levels of individualism and correlated it with random samples from 40 states;
thus, strictly speaking, our findings only allow conclusions about the patterns of behaviors
found in certain regional societies, not about the personality of individuals. Indeed, by
applying findings obtained at the aggregate level to the individual level, one not only ignores
individual differences that necessarily occur within any society but one may also arrive at
drastically erroneous conclusions about individual behavior (e.g., Ostroff, 1993). Therefore,
future research will have to examine whether our hypotheses concerning the impact of
cultural values on prosocial action also hold at the individual level of analysis.
Second, and perhaps more important, higher levels of giving and volunteering in individualist societies must be viewed as a product of differences in social ecology. As mentioned
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earlier, collectivist societies tend to discriminate more strongly between ingroups and
outgroups than do individualist societies (Iyengar et al., 1999). Therefore, much of the interpersonal assistance extended in the former societies is not likely to be tapped by research that
concentrates on prosocial acts between strangers. On the other hand, life in individualist societies may be more conducive for individuals to assist strangers because they may be less
likely to face responsibilities at home that consume their time and resources. For instance,
adults in individualist American states are more likely to live alone without having to care
for aging parents (e.g., Kemmelmeier & Uz, 2005; Vandello & Cohen, 1999). It might be of
little surprise that we find individualism to be correlated with giving and volunteering simply because our study focuses on actions that benefit strangers but does not systematically
examine the time and money people provide to close others. In other words, it is not that the
overall amount of support of and care for others is different between states but that the relationship of help recipients and help givers varies—with stranger-on-stranger helping being
more typical in individualist states and ingroup solidarity being more likely to occur in collectivist states. In this sense, Waterman’s (1981, 1984) thesis of the beneficial consequences
of individualism on prosocial behavior may require an important qualification.
Arguably, focusing on the social ecology of individualist and collectivist states might
raise questions about whether a cultural explanation of giving and volunteering, as proposed here, is necessary at all. As an anonymous reviewer of the present article argued,
giving and volunteering might be a direct function of the greater amount of leisure that
people in some states seem to have available to them, with the cultural values of individualism playing no role at all. Regrettably, we do not have data that are specific enough to
explore in any detail the question of a relationship between time available and degree of
volunteering. As we alluded to above, we agree that having disposable time is a plausible
antecedent to volunteering (although being much less plausible with regard to charitable
giving). However, we are inclined to view the use and organization of one’s time as, at least
in part, a cultural phenomenon rather than an aspect of life that is unrelated to culture.
Specifically, the individualist emphasis on self-determination can be taken to imply that
individualists will try to maintain a greater level of control over their time. Therefore,
if people in individualist states have more disposable time, this might be very much an
expression of their cultural values. In brief, having disposable time cannot be seen as an
alternative to our cultural explanation of patterns of giving and volunteering.
We feel that other aspects of our findings are even more compelling in supporting a
cultural explanation and in rejecting the idea that disposable time alone can explain the
observed variation in giving and volunteering. If leisure time were solely responsible for
higher levels of prosocial action, there is no a priori basis to expect that our individualist
causes would receive higher levels of support than our control causes. Because we predicted and observed such a differential pattern, our cultural approach must be viewed as
more encompassing and, hence, preferable. Therefore, we conclude that giving and volunteering can be, and should be, understood as cultural phenomena.
NOTES
1. Although the United States and Canada occupy top positions on the available rankings of individualism, it
is important to note that there continue to be stark differences between North America and other individualist
countries (Lipset, 1996). For instance, according to Inglehart and Baker (2000), the United States as a whole
tends to be more traditional and more religious compared to other Western individualist societies.
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2. Note that according to some authors, the value of self-improvement is compatible with both individualism
and collectivism (e.g., Schwartz, 1990).
3. We acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to us.
4. The 1999 study did not contain respondents from some of the less populous U.S. states: namely, Alaska,
Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
5. Libertarianism is a political orientation that emphasizes maximization of liberty for every individual.
Typically, libertarians favor minimal involvement of government in social and economic life.
6. Because van de Vliert and colleagues reported a wealth by climate interaction in predicting volunteering
motives (van de Vliert, Huang, & Levine, 2004) and altruism (van de Vliert, Huang, & Parker, 2004), we also
tested a temperature by income term in all analyses reported here. However, because this interaction term never
reached significance, it was always dropped from the final models.
7. Because the list of causes for volunteering differed from the list of causes for charitable giving, it was not
possible to include cause as a repeated-measures factor in the same linear mixed model; therefore, we generated
separate models.
8. The exclusion of environmental causes lowered this coefficient substantially, b = .0015, SE = .0012, p = .22.
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Markus Kemmelmeier received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 2001.
He is currently an assistant professor in the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in social psychology and
the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno. His research focuses on social judgment,
culture, and intergroup relations.
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Edina E. Jambor is currently working toward her Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Nevada,
Reno. Her research interests concern intergroup dynamics between the hearing and the deaf as well as
the self-esteem and quality of life of deaf individuals.
Joyce Letner is currently a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her
research interests include prosocial behavior, culture, and social identity.