Leiden University Student Repository

Zandstra, Anna Lotte 2022

What motivates members from underrepresented groups to join non-profit organizations? The effects of organizational morality, warmth and emphasizing the value of social identity on the motivation to join a non-profit organization with psychological safety and organizational trust as mediators

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

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This research addresses the willingness to join a nonprofit organization as a volunteer of people who perceive that their social identity is different from the social identity of the current...Show moreThis research addresses the willingness to join a nonprofit organization as a volunteer of people who perceive that their social identity is different from the social identity of the current volunteers of the organization. Specifically, a social identity approach was applied, and it was predicted that for non-volunteers who have atypical social identities the organizational warmth, organizational morality, and organizational communications about the value of social identity, would influence the motivation to join the non-profit organization through psychological safety and organizational trust as mediators. The online research, for which non-volunteers who have atypical social identities were recruited as research participants via the Academic Prolific Online Platform (n = 184), had a 4-cell between subjects’ experimental design (organizational warmth, organizational morality, communications of social identity value versus ‘Wikipedia information’ control condition). The participants were presented the US Fire Brigade as type of non-profit organization, were thereafter randomly allocated across the experimental conditions, and subsequently completed a questionnaire that recorded the variables of the research. The data was analyzed using one-way ANOVAs and multiple mediating regressions analyses. ANOVAs showed that the manipulations of organizational warmth and the organizational communications about the value of social identity were successful, but also that the manipulation of organizational morality was not successful. Subsequently, a one-way ANOVA showed that organizational warmth and the organizational communications about the value of social identity instilled trust in the organization and sense of psychological safety in the participants. Thereafter, mediation regression analyses showed that organizational warmth and organizational communications about social identity value related significantly and indirectly related to the motivation to join the non-profit organization as a volunteer through organizational trust and sense of psychological safety. The implications, limitations, and suggestions for further research, of the study are discussed.Show less