The politicized motivations of volunteers in the refugee crisis: Intergroup helping as the means to achieve social change

Abstract

The refugee crisis in the summer of 2015 mobilized thousands of volunteers in Hungary to help refugees on their journey through Europe despite the government’s hostile stance. We conducted a survey (N = 1459) among people who were active in supporting refugees and providing services to them to test the hypothesis of whether volunteers in the context of this humanitarian crisis had social change motivations similar to those engaged in direct political activism. Hierarchical regression analysis and mediation analysis revealed the importance of opinion-based identity and moral convictions as predictors of volunteerism, while efficacy beliefs and anger only predicted political activism. Our findings suggest that volunteers engaged in helping refugees based on motivations previously described as drivers of mobilization for political activism, but chose volunteerism to alleviate the problems embedded in the intergroup situation. Although the context of the refugee crisis in Hungary may have been somewhat unique, these findings have implications for other asymmetrical politicized intergroup relations in which advantaged group members can choose to offer humanitarian aid, engage in political actions to change the situation, or do both.

The refugee crisis in the summer of 2015 mobilized thousands of volunteers in Hungary to help refugees on their journey through Europe. Because of the Hungarian government’s explicitly hostile stance toward refugees, offering volunteer help was treated as an expression of political dissent by authorities.

We investigated the motivations of volunteers within this political climate. The psychological motivations to engage in political protest and volunteerism can be distinguished based on previous research. Volunteerism is the intentional engagement in helping for the benefit of others; it can be long term or flare up in moments of crisis, but it does not necessarily entail intentions to bring about change. In contrast, engagement in political protest is motivated by peoples’ intentions to address injustice and achieve change. As the refugee crisis evoked both types of actions (volunteerism and political protests), it provided us with the opportunity to investigate whether volunteering was driven by (1) motivation to bring about social change, (2) identification with the pro-refugee movement, and (3) experiencing a violation to their moral principles, all of which are typical for political activists.

We conducted a survey among people who were active in supporting refugees, or participated in political protests. 1459 participants completed our online survey. We measured their level of moral conviction, identification with the pro-refugee opinion group, anger about the situation, and belief in their group’s efficacy to achieve change. Our results showed that identification with the pro-refugee movement and moral conviction were important motivations primarily for volunteers, while belief in the efficacy of the movement and anger were more closely related to engagement in political activism.

We therefore suggest that activities of pro-refugee volunteers became the means to express moral convictions and a desire for social change. We used the case of the refugee crisis to draw attention to the importance of understanding the similarities and differences in the paths toward volunteerism and political activism, in terms of peoples’ motivation to achieve change, as social movements are just as dependent on mobilizing allies for political actions as they are on mobilizing volunteers.