Altruists will be altruists, but what about individualists? The role of future time perspective and social value orientation in volunteers’ declarations to continue engagement in three time horizons

Iwona Nowakowska

doi:10.1007/s11266-023-00613-8

Altruists will be altruists, but what about individualists? The role of future time perspective and social value orientation in volunteers’ declarations to continue engagement in three time horizons

Abstract

Volunteering involves caring for the outcomes of others and typically long-term orientation so that one can achieve goals that are not always clearly visible in the short term. As with any activity, volunteering attracts people of different social value orientations – some rather individualistic, some rather altruistic. The aim of the study was to find out whether the future time perspective, which promotes thinking about future goals and planning, is linked to volunteers' declarations of the probability of them continuing volunteering in a month, year, and three years and whether this link is moderated by social value orientation. An online questionnaire-based study was performed on a sample of 245 volunteers. The results indicated that the higher the social value orientation, the greater the predicted probability of continuing volunteering. Future time perspective was related to the predicted probability of continuing volunteering in all investigated time horizons only when volunteers had a more individualistic than altruistic social value orientation. Younger age and longer experience with volunteering were also linked to the predicted probability of continuing volunteering in a year and three years (but not in one month). The results show the importance of social value orientation and future time perspective for more individualistic volunteers in their willingness to volunteer further. The study has practical implications for organizations' management, who should consider developing cooperation skills in their volunteers. For competitive volunteers, they may also highlight how challenges could make an impact in the future so that they intend to remain active.