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Understanding individual characteristics of adolescents who volunteer

Zeynep Cemalcilar *

Department of Psychology, Ko University, Rumeli Feneri Yolu, 34450 Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 28 April 2008

Received in revised form 21 September

2008Accepted 12 November 2008

Available online 19 December 2008

Keywords:

Volunteerism in adolescence

Social responsibility

Self-selection in volunteerism

a b s t r a c t

Volunteering has positive effects on adolescents psychological and social development. However, few

studies have marked a self-selection bias, suggesting that the significance of these positive consequences

may decrease when volunteers pre-participation characteristics are controlled for (e.g. Johnson, Beebe,

Mortimer, & Snyder, 1998). The present short-term longitudinal study investigates the underlying

dynamics of adolescents volunteerism. First time volunteering adolescents are accessed at the time of

their initial decision to volunteer on a social responsibility project and their self-perceptions (self-con-

cept, self-esteem) and civic attitudes (social responsibility, community belonging) are compared to their

peers with similar backgrounds but did not volunteer to participate in the project. MANOVA results

yielded that volunteers were more likely to be females, younger and scored higher on all measured indi-

vidual characteristics compared to the non-volunteers. No significant effects of this participation were

observed when pre-existing individual characteristics were controlled for. Findings are discussed in rela-

tion to developing appropriate recruitment strategies that would encourage more adolescents to be

actively involved in social responsibility projects.

2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Volunteerism is one form of civic participation which includes

long-term, planned, and nonobligatory prosocial activities that

benefit another person, cause or a group (Penner, 2004). Within

the last decade, civic participation has become widespread and fre-

quent, a global issue with significance for social policies and social

well-being. According to the 20012003 statistics, in six countries

(Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK, and the US) percent-

ages of adults regularly volunteering ranged between 25% to 48%

of the populations (Penner, 2004).

Volunteerism has positive effects for both the society and the

volunteering individual. Engaging in prosocial tasks, building social

relationships and acquiring new knowledge and skills empower

volunteers, and result in various psychological and social gains

(Wilson, 2000). Most early research is based on the experiencesof adult volunteers. A more recent and developing line of research

investigates civic engagement among high school and college stu-

dents, in terms of their participation in student governments,

sports teams, religious organizations and community volunteering

(Marta & Pozzi, 2008). These studies point out additional beneficial

developmental consequences of volunteerism for youngsters, such

as personal growth (Switzer, Simmons, Dew, Regalski, & Wang,

1995), development of pro-social attitudes and empathy for others

(Atkins, Hart, & Donnelly, 2005) and changes in self-perception

(Callero, Howard, & Piliavin, 1987) as volunteer role becomes part

of their identity. Mostly for the disadvantaged and at-risk students,

civic engagement is also observed to improve academic achieve-

ment and future academic and occupational goals and decrease

likelihood of dropping out from school (Taylor & Pancer, 2007).

Yet, a number of empirical studies reported null or negative ef-

fects of civic involvement on volunteers (Metz & Youniss, 2005;

Schmidt, Shumow, & Kackar, 2007). One of the reasons cited for

these inconsistencies in findings is the specific characteristics of

those who volunteered. Individuals who self select to partake in

volunteer activities differ from their counterparts who do not in

terms of some important background characteristics (e.g. parental

education, ethnicity) and individual difference factors (e.g. motiva-

tion, civic involvement). These predetermined dispositions, in turn,

may nullify the effect of civic participation (Stukas, Clary, & Snyder,

1999).In this paper, I aim to shed light on the effects of self-selection

on the consequences of civic participation of youngsters. In a field

study, I investigate self-perceptions (self-esteem, general self-con-

cept, social responsibility, community belonging) of first time vol-

unteers in contrast to their peers who do not volunteer.

Secondarily, I also analyze the pre- to post- project score changes

of volunteers to test the impact of this participation.

1.1. Volunteerism in perspective

Volunteering makes substantial social and economic contribu-

tions to society, however they are rather costly in a number of

0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.11.009

* Tel.: +90 212 338 1515; fax: +90 212 338 3760.

E-mail address: zcemalcilar@ku.edu.tr

Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 432436

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Personality and Individual Differences

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / p a i d

mailto:zcemalcilar@ku.edu.trhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01918869http://www.elsevier.com/locate/paidhttp://www.elsevier.com/locate/paidhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01918869mailto:zcemalcilar@ku.edu.tr

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ways; they require investments of large amounts of money, time,

goods, and human effort (Penner, 2004). This makes the ability to

effectively recruit and retain volunteers of vital interest to social

scientists, practitioners, and policy makers.

One of the key factors for ensuring initiation and sustainability

of volunteerism is to identify its determinants (Smith, 1994). At the

same time, if volunteerism is beneficial for the volunteers them-

selves, unraveling the dynamics of civic participation can also beuseful in attracting larger numbers of individuals for service, spe-

cifically those who would benefit most from this experience, but

hold back due to a variety of reasons.

Researchers consider various dispositional, situational, and

structural factors as determinants of volunteerism. Two of the

most prominent models of volunteerism, the volunteer process

model by Omoto and Snyder (1995) and the prosocial personality

model by Penner (2002) emphasize the importance of identifying

dispositional characteristics of volunteers in understanding the

factors that lead them to volunteer in the first place and then con-

tinue volunteering for extended periods. Omoto and Snyder (1995)

further claim that since there are fewer situational constraints on

the initial decision to volunteer, it is dispositional factors that play

an especially important role in this decision. Penner (2004) has

also defined the initial decision to volunteer as a personal decision,

which is likely to be affected by individuals preexisting personality

dispositions. However, in further empirical studies, researchers

studying the volunteer process model limited their focus more

on motives and values as individual characteristics influencing the

initial decision to volunteer, whereas those studying the prosocial

personality model focused on other-oriented empathy and helpful-

ness as individual characteristics that predictor sustained

volunteerism.

Recent attempts in understanding the profile of volunteers

yielded important, yet inconclusive findings (Reed & Selbee,

2000). In a review article, Wilson (2000) suggested that females

were more likely than males to volunteer, volunteerism peaked

during middle adulthood, and people with more education, higher

income and/or higher prestigious jobs volunteered more thanpeople from lower socio-economic groups. On a sample of college

students, Carlo, Okun, Knight, and de Guzman (2005) demon-

strated that extraversion and agreeableness were positively asso-

ciated with volunteerism. In a large scale study of about 18.000

Canadians aged 15 years and older, Reed and Selbee (2000) com-

pared active volunteers to less active volunteers and non-volun-

teers on 47 variables covering a wide range of social and

economic characteristics and demonstrated that generosity and

caring, household characteristics, religious factors, education,

occupation, assessment of ones life situation, motivation, region,

and community size were the most salient determinants of

volunteerism.

Two other research streams also study the dispositional charac-

teristics of volunteers, but they seek to understand the effects ofindividual characteristics on the consequences of volunteerism.

The first group of studies suggest that the positive consequences

of volunteering disappear when individuals pre- existing charac-

teristics are taken into account. For instance, in a longitudinal

study using data from the four waves of the Youth Development

Study with high school students, Johnson, Beebe, Mortimer, and

Snyder (1998) demonstrated that significant program effects stu-

dents on students well-being, self-esteem, and academic perfor-

mance were nullified when their pre-program characteristics that

predicted volunteerism four years before were controlled for anal-

yses. The second group of studies derives from the observation that

most direct requests to become a volunteer are targeted at people

who are perceived as being the kinds of individuals who would be

interested in becoming a volunteer (Penner, 2004). Hence thosewho volunteer are already different from the less inclined ones

on a variety of socio-demographic factors, such as parental educa-

tion and ethnicity and other civic attitudes, such as intended future

voting or civic involvement (Metz & Youniss, 2005). Taken together

the studies mentioned above imply that when participation is vol-

untary, only those who are already well-equipped self-select to

volunteer, whereas, those who are most in need of this experience

refrain from engaging in community service on their own accounts

(Henderson, Brown, Pancer, & Ellis-Hale, 2007). However, as Hen-derson et al., also showed students do benefit from civic participa-

tion even when they are mandated to participate: those who are

less likely to volunteer (who usually lack some social and economic

resources) benefit more than those who are already involved, and

an accumulation of these experiences may even compensate for

any background differences and equalize opportunity for these dis-

advantaged students.

Extant research on profiling volunteers is limited in an impor-

tant way. Most of these studies are cross-sectional and/or collect

data retrospectively. They access individuals who have already

undertaken at least one voluntary activity and analyze their dispo-

sitional characteristics and motivations in relation to the non-vol-

unteers in the same sample. However, as Finkelstein, Penner, and

Brannick (2005) have also suggested, it is possible that individuals

motives and values change over time as they become involved in

prosocial behaviors. Hence, identifying individual characteristics

that lead individuals to volunteer in the first place using such ret-

rospective designs is impractical.

1.2. The present study

The present short-term longitudinal study is novel in the sense

that it accessed adolescents at the time of their initial decision to

undertake a volunteer activity for the first time in their lives and

compared their individual characteristics to non-volunteers with

similar backgrounds. Additionally, pre- and post- project measures

are compared to assess the effects of this participation on the same

individual difference factors.

Volunteers and non-volunteers in the sample came from thesame schools and constituted a fairly homogenous group in terms

of their family backgrounds and the school contexts they attend to.

Hence, rather than focusing on the frequently studied demographic

and socio-economic factors as dispositional factors that influence

volunteerism (Reed & Selbee, 2000), I chose to study individual

characteristic which are often studied as factors influenced analy-

ses civic engagements. Various researchers suggest that civic men-

tioned above produces character-related changes in youngsters

(Reed, Jernstedt, Hawley, Reber, & DuBois, 2005; Schmidt et al.,

2007). In a number of studies with a variety of samples, the most

often reported outcomes were self- related perceptions; self-es-

teem, self- identity and self-worth and civic attitudes; social

responsibility and community belonging (e.g. Penner & Finkelstein,

1998; Reed et al., 2005; Stukas et al., 1999; Taylor & Pancer, 2007;Yates & Youniss, 1998). Accordingly, in this study, I chose to study

these individual characteristics to investigate whether volunteers

differed from non-volunteers in systematic ways. I argue that,

ones belief in his/herself and his/her values regarding the commu-

nity they belong to would have the utmost effect on their initial

decision to volunteer. Hence in accordance with previous research

regarding self-selection effects, I expect the volunteering group to

be higher on all individual characteristic factors compared to the

non-volunteers.

To summarize, by comparing self-perceptions of volunteers

with those of non-volunteers, I aim to identify characteristics that

enable adolescents to undertake social responsibility projects for

the first time. At the same time, by comparing pre- to post- project

scores, I test whether participation in a year long social responsi-bility project had an effect on volunteers.

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2. Method

2.1. The program and procedure

The social responsibility program studied in this research is the

Little Steps for a Great Future program of the Turkish Community

Volunteers Foundation (TOG), which brings primary school stu-

dents from low to middle-low income public schools together withuniversity student mentors so that they cooperate in various social

responsibility activities in their communities. This program has

been implemented in primary schools across Turkey, since 2005.

The current paper focuses on the experiences of the primary school

student participants only.

After being trained by TOG, university student mentors contact

the administrators of the primary schools in their communities,

and upon their agreement, make presentations about the project

in the school, separately for students, teachers, and parents. After

the presentations students volunteer to partake in the project.

Even though participation is strongly supported by the school

administrators, in no way is it enforced. Besides, there are no

known cases in which participation was denied by the students

parents.

Volunteers meet with their mentors as a group in their schools

periodically for the whole academic year. The first few meetings

are devoted to raising awareness to social problems, encouraging

civic engagement, and project planning. Then, students are asked

to identify some social problems in their schools or communities

that they deem important and finally, choose one or more prob-

lems that they would like to work on as a group. It is made sure

that all group members agree on the selected project(s). The main

responsibility for planning and implementing the activities and

finding funding is on the students. Mentors only intervene in case

of problems.

2.2. The participants

Data for the present study were collected in two differentimplementations of the Little Steps project in the 2006/07 and

the 2007/08 academic years. The types of schools selected to par-

ticipate and the procedures followed were identical. There was

only a difference in the assignment of control groups. In 2006/07,

participants in the control group were randomly selected among

students who had listened to the project presentation but chose

not to participate, whereas in 2007/08, they were selected among

students who did not know about the project. Thus, only the

2006/07 sample was used in comparing the characteristics of vol-

unteers to the non-volunteers at the time of initial decision to par-

ticipate. Pre- to post-project comparisons were conducted on the

combined sample. Detailed information regarding group differ-

ences is presented when necessary.

Pre-project questionnaires were administered before the pro-gram presentation. A total of 569 students responded, and 505

who had not participated in any previous social responsibility

projects constituted the sample of this study. A comparison of

those who had participated in one or more social responsibility

projects before to those who had not, yielded significant main ef-

fects; already volunteers scored higher than the non-experi-

enced on all individual characteristics measures. To control for

any confounding effects of previous civic engagement, only stu-

dents who had never volunteered before were included in the

sample of this study. Pre-project scores of the project and the con-

trol groups were compared to identify the characteristics of the

adolescents who volunteered.

A total of 416 students responded to both pre- and post-project

questionnaires: 130 participated in the 2006/07 academic year and

285 in the 2007/08 academic year. Within the 2006/07 sample, out

of the 505 students who participated in the pre-project phase, only

131 also responded to the post-project questionnaires. The high

attrition rate (77%) was mostly due to a timing problem: in some

schools, post-project data collection took place after the semester

was over and most of the students had already left for summer

vacation. T-test comparisons on demographics and pre-project

measures on all study variables conducted separately for the con-

trol and project groups revealed negligible differences betweenthose who participated both phases and those who dropped out

after the pre-project phase. Within the control group, those who

provided the post data had a significantly higher score on one

sub-dimension of the social responsibility scale (contribution to

the classroom and school community) and within the project

group, those who provided the post data had a significantly higher

score on one sub-dimension of the social-concept scale (intellec-

tual and school status) than the drop-outs. Hence it was concluded

that those who participated in both phases were not significantly

different from those who provided only the pre-project data. In

the 2007/08 sample, the attrition rate was less than 10% (only 30

participants out of 315).

Post-project questionnaires were administered after the

planned projects were completed, approximately six months fol-

lowing the pre-test administration. Comparisons of post- and

pre- project responses tested the effects of the program on

volunteers.

The types of civic projects implemented ranged from raising

environment awareness in the community (by writing reports

based on literature reviews, giving seminars in the school and in

the neighborhood, or cleaning trash and planting trees), helping

schools nearby (building a library or starting campaigns for dona-

tions to meet various needs of schools in nearby villages), to help-

ing cancer patient children actualize one wish with the money they

raised from writing and performing a theater play.

2.3. Measures

Community belongingis assessed with a 5items constructed forthis study. Responses were given on a 5-point Likert scale with

higher scores indicating higher community belonging. Sample item

is I feel like home in this neighborhood. The internal consistency of

the items was .60.

Social responsibility is assessed with a15-item short version of

the Quick Social Responsibility Scale (BC Ministry of Education,

2001). The scale had 4 subscales, assessing adolescents levels of

(1) contribution to the classroom and school community; (2) val-

uing diversity and defending human rights; (3) self-perceived

ability of solving problems in peaceful ways; and (4) self-per-

ceived ability of exercising democratic rights and responsibilities.

A 5-point Likert scale was used with higher scores indicating

higher social responsibility. The scale had an internal consistency

of .72Self-esteem is assessed with the Turkish version of the Rosen-

berg Self-Esteem Scale (Cuhadaroglu, 1986). It is a 10-item self-re-

port measure with a 5-point Likert response scale. Higher scores

indicate higher self-esteem. The scale had an internal consistency

of .73.

Self-concept is assessed with the Turkish version of the Piers

Harris Childrens Self-Concept Scale (Oner, 2005). It is an 80-item

instrument measuring ones self-attitudes reflecting both a

description and evaluation in six domains; happiness, anxiety,

intellect and school status, behavioral adjustment, popularity,

and physical appearance and attributes. Respondents answer yes/

no to each item. Higher scores represent a positive self-concept.

The physical appearance and attributes subscale was irrelevant

to this study and thus not used. The remaining 57 items had aninternal consistency of .91.

434 Z. Cemalcilar/ Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 432436

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3. Results

First, I demonstrate that the first time volunteers differ from

their non-volunteering counterparts in the selected individual dif-

ference charactersitics. Then, I test the effects of this civic partici-

pation on volunteers.

3.1. Characteristics of volunteers

Among the 505 students who responded to the pre-project

questionnaires (from the 2006/07 sample), 388 volunteered and

117 did not volunteer to participate in the program. Eighty-seven

percent of students in the control group had participated in the

project presentation. Fifty six percent of volunteers and 45% of

non-volunteers were females, indicating a significant difference

by gender, v2 = 4.0, p < .05. Volunteers were, on average, one year

younger than non-volunteers [Xproject = 12.31 and Xcontrol = 13.31,

F (1, 500) = 10.32, p < .001].

MANOVA was used to compare the two groups self-reported

individual characteristics. Mean scores are presented in Table 1.

The analysis yielded a significant multivariate effect of group on

the linear composition of the dependent variables [Wilks k (13,

472) = 8.48, p < .000, gp2 = .21]. Univariate comparisons indicated

a significant effect of the group status on community belonging

and overall social responsibility scores with the project group scor-

ing higher on both. A further examination of the social responsibil-

ity subscales yielded that volunteers scores were higher on the

contribution to the classroom and school community and the exer-

cising democratic rights and responsibilities subscales compared

to non-volunteers. Univariate comparisons also indicated a signif-

icant effect of the group status on self-esteem and overall self-con-

cept, favoring volunteers in all variables.1 When the domains of

self-concept are investigated, the differences were on perceived

intellectual and school status and behavioral adjustment subscales.

To test the relative effects of the individual characteristics that

significantly differentiated volunteers from non-volunteers, a step-

wise logistic regression analysis was conducted with the same 505participants. All individual difference variables at the pre-project

phase are entered as predictors of the volunteer status after con-

trolling for age and gender. The model fit the data significantly

and explained 26% of the probability of group membership. Those

who were younger (B =.436, Exp(B) = .647, p < .000) and who per-

ceived themselves as having high intellect (B = .551, Exp(B) = 1.736,

p < .000) were more likely to volunteer. The odds of volunteering

increased 36% for those who were a year younger and 73% for each

unit increase in the perceived intellectual and school status score.

3.2. The effects of participation

The combined pre- and post-project data received from partic-

ipants of the two implementations of the project were used to testthe effects of this participation on volunteers. At the post-project

data collection, 20 students who were originally in the control

group mentioned having participated in the yearlong activities of

the program at least more than once, and are included in the pro-

ject group. The number of volunteers totaled to 194, and non-vol-

unteers to 139.

The project and control groups pre- to post- project score

changes were compared using a 2 (pre-post) by 2 (control-project

group) Repeated Measures of ANCOVA. Gender was included as a

control variable and age as covariate. Estimated means are pre-

sented in Table 2. The results revealed no significant changes at

the post- project phase in the volunteer groups scores compared

to those of the non-volunteers. No positive effect of this participa-

tion was observed when volunteers pre-existing individual char-

acteristics are controlled for. The analyses yielded the same

results when run separately for the 2006/07 and 2007/08 samples.

4. Discussion

Understanding the dynamics of youth volunteering is important

because civic engagement has positive effects on adolescentsdevelopment and also because youth volunteerism is a strong pre-

dictor of adult volunteerism (Atkins et al., 2005). To ensure that

more citizens start volunteering at earlier ages and then continue

throughout their adulthood requires severe planning on the part

of the volunteer dependent agencies.

The findings of the present study suggest that, among a group of

adolescents who were given the chance to participate in a social

responsibility project for the first time, those who volunteered

were different from their peers who chose not to volunteer on a

number of demographic and individual difference factors.

Regarding demographics, as suggested before (Wilson, 2000),

the volunteers in the present study were more likely to be females

and younger than non-volunteers. Regarding individual difference

factors, volunteers had significantly higher community belonging,social responsibility, and self-evaluations (esteem and concept)

Table 1

Control and project group means in the pre-project phase (N= 505).

Control

group

Project

group

F p

Community belonging 3.96 4.19 10.293 .00

Social responsibility (overall) 3.57 3.74 10.951 .00

Contribution to the school

community

3.69 3.85 4.136 .04

Valuing diversity and defendinghuman rights

3.65 3.74 1.189 NS

Solving problems 3.97 4.06 .862 NS

Exercising democratic rights/

responsibilities

2.93 3.13 17.616 .00

Self-esteem 3.67 3.88 8.397 .00

Self-concept (overall) .71 .77 16.211 .00

Happiness and satisfaction .73 .79 6.193 .01

Freedom from anxiety .58 .61 2.807 NS

Intellectual and school status .65 .82 53.539 .00

Behavioral adjustment .73 .80 16.632 .00

Popularity .83 .82 .145 NS

Table 2

The estimated marginal means of pre- and post- project scores by group ( N= 333).

Control group Project group WilksF

Pre-

test

Post-

test

Pre-

test

Post-

test

Community belonging 4.11 4.14 4.17 4.29 .15

Social responsibility 3.64 3.61 3.71 3.73 .03

Contribution to the school

community

3.92 3.82 3.79 3.88 .25

Valuing diversity and defending

human rights

3.62 3.68 3.64 3.53 .21

Solving problems 3.98 3.81 3.96 4.05 .23

Exercising democratic rights/

responsibilities

3.11 3.06 3.46 3.51 .32

Self-esteem 3.80 3.63 3.79 3.65 2.37

Self-concept (overall) .76 .71 .74 .74 1.57

Happiness and satisfaction .78 .76 .80 .76 2.06

Freedom from anxiety .61 .58 .58 .60 1.09

Intellectual and school status .75 .71 .80 .76 .05

Behavioral adjustment .79 .73 .76 .73 1.13

Popularity .85 .79 .82 .82 1.73

1 The analysis yielded no significant difference when run on the 2007/08 sample

only. The control group in this sample was composed of students from other schoolswith similar backgrounds, who did not know about Little Steps program.

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than non-volunteers at the time of the decision to volunteer, also

confirming previous studies (e.g. Metz & Youniss, 2005; Reed

et al., 2005). In terms of self-evaluations, students who were more

likely to be satisfied with who they were, who had better behav-

ioral adjustment, and perceived themselves as intelligent were

more likely to undertake volunteer responsibility than non-

volunteers.

When relative effects of these individual characteristics wereanalyzed, only age and self-perceived intellectual level emerged

as factors significantly predicting volunteerism. Those who were

younger and who perceived themselves as having high intellectual

and school status were more likely to volunteer. The reason why

older students refrained from participating may be related to their

relatively heavy course-work. The reason why students with high

intellectual and school status participated may be twofold; it is

either that those who are doing better in academic work can de-

vote time to extracurricular activities, or that those who are more

confident in their ability to make a difference on others lives select

to participate.

Analysis on the effects of the program yielded no significant ef-

fects on the measured individual characteristics. This finding is

also in line with the self-selection bias observed in other studies

(e.g. Johnson et al., 1998; Stukas et al., 1999; Walker, 2002; Yates

& Youniss, 1998). Individuals with already positive psychological

states volunteer and when their individual characteristics are sta-

tistically controlled for, the post-project gains lose significance.

Overall the results of this study suggest that when civic partic-

ipation is introduced as a personal choice, adolescents with more

positive psychological states volunteer, yet, this experience has

only a limited effect on further enhancing their already positive

characteristics.

Recent demonstrations on the positive effects of mandated civic

participation on especially those who are less inclined to volunteer

suggest requiring participation as a method of recruitment at least

for some disadvantaged youth (e.g. Henderson et al., 2007; Metz &

Youniss, 2005). Additionally, studies spanning long time intervals

are explicit in showing a formative influence of early civic engage-ment in later adult years. In the present study, too, an initial com-

parison of those who have participated in social responsibility

projects before with those who have not, yielded significant differ-

ences; experienced students were higher on all individual charac-

teristics both from those who volunteered in this project and those

who did not. This observed difference implies that accumulation of

civic experiences contributes to the volunteers psychological and

social development. An alternative explanation may be that the ef-

fects of civic participation on volunteers become observable in the

log-run. More systematic analysis is required to understand this.

Regardless, in light of the existing research on mandated participa-

tion, findings of the current study also suggest that civic engage-

ment is beneficial for the youths and recruitment strategies

should be adjusted to encourage those who are less likely tovolunteer.

At the same time, this study also responds to the question

whether personality leads to volunteering or volunteering shapes

personality (Atkins et al., 2005). At the time of initial decision,

being equipped with certain individual characteristics does lead

one to volunteer. However, in the long run, civic involvement

may have positive effects on volunteers dispositions.

Reaching out to adolescents as early as possible to increase their

awareness to social problems and help them see that they can

make a difference as conscientious citizens is important. More re-

search is needed to get an in-depth understanding of the reserva-

tions of potential volunteers who are less likely to self-nominate.

Then these research findings can be used to guide practitioners

and policy makers to develop appropriate strategies to recruit lar-

ger numbers of adolescents to participate in civic projects, who

would benefit from this experience while at the same time serve

communities in need.

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