This article addresses what motivations volunteers have for volunteering for refugees and whether these motivations differ from or complement motivations to volunteer in general, such as included in the widely used measurement instrument, the Volunteer Function Inventory (VFI). We organized eight focus groups with volunteers for refugees (N = 44) and interviewed five involved coordinators, all working in one city in the Netherlands. Results show that humanitarian concerns and social justice were highly relevant for people’s motivations, next to volunteering to obtain or improve knowledge and skills. We find support for the earlier suggested extension of the VFI with the social justice motivation. Next, the current study expands existing analysis on volunteer motivations by identifying four areas that require further attention: (1) volunteers for refugees seek a meaningful role in life; (2) are motivated by the pragmatism of this volunteer work; (3) have emotional reasons; and (4) are motivated by media exposure.

The direct relationship between international volunteer experiences and impacts has rarely been explored and yet is important for understanding why certain impacts occur in the lives of volunteers upon returning home. This information helps organizations to develop effective international volunteer programs. This interpretive case study of the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association’s volunteer program explores the interactions between motivations, experiences, and impacts of volunteers who participate in short-term, development aid projects. It utilizes qualitative interviews and participant observation with recent volunteers and interviews with past alumni to understand these relationships. The findings identify three distinct types of volunteer narratives connecting experiences and impacts—personal, professional, and negative categories. The key characteristics of the experience are living situations and conditions, location selection, work placement options, and non-work related activities, frame experiences and effect impacts, influencing the nature of the narrative. Narratives are also strongly influenced by volunteer personalities and characteristics of the local culture.

This paper explores the motivational frame of Italian young adults involved in volunteerism and its relation to several variables included in Omoto and Snyder’s Volunteer Process Model framework. Some 461 Italian young adults (aged 24–31) involved in voluntary activities with children and adolescents were considered. Referring to Omoto and Snyder’s functionalist and motivational framework, a Ward’s method cluster analysis was performed to identify specific patterns of motivations originating from the aggregation of 4 factors of motivation (social, career, ego-protective, and values) measured with the Voluntary Function Inventory (VFI). The results show that young volunteers are inspired by a distinctive and composite pattern of motivations, including both self and other-oriented motivations. Multiple motivations underlying the activities are associated to satisfaction and good integration in the organization confirming that people spurred by more than one motivation are less vulnerable to costs related to the activity and are more likely to maintain a longer involvement.

This study focuses on the role of individuals’ social networks and motivations in predicting their intention to participate socially. In an online survey, university students (N = 263) estimated the likelihood of their future participation in several types of civic and political activity and evaluated their possible motivations. Participants also indicated approximately how many of their social contacts were already involved in each type of participation, with this measure being used to calculate their degree centrality in social networks. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that motivations and social contacts were significant predictors of intention to engage in most forms of civic and political activity studied. Social contacts were more decisive in predicting political than civic participation. We also found that personal motivations mediated the relationship between social contacts and intention to participate in all cases except joining a political party. We discuss the results in light of their theoretical and practical implications.

Studies investigating motivations for political participation in receiving-state politics among immigrant groups typically follow a traditional approach to understanding the process behind political engagement. In this work, the authors argue that this approach is insufficient if we want to understand the motivations of diasporic groups, notably in cases in which they are geographically close to home and influenced by both origin and receiving-state politics. This study examines the motivations for political party engagement among members of Bosnian diaspora in Austria and elucidates the links between political party membership and receiving-country political opportunity structures which formally result in political detachment from homeland politics. It does so through twenty-five interviews with Bosnian members of Austrian political parties conducted in fourteen cities in Austria. The article focuses on motivations for engagement in political parties which result in detachment from homeland politics and an identification with receiving-state politics. The findings reveal that pre-migratory experiences of war and membership in diasporic associations do not drive the motivations for engagement. Instead, their participation evolves from motives that are embedded in local experiences, while motives related to origin-state opportunity structures are negative or feebly present.

A reciprocal action is an action meant to have a similar influence on another's payoff as another's action has on one's own. One hypothesis asserts that reciprocal action is triggered by the reciprocator's belief that another's action was good or ill intended. The other hypothesis says that the reciprocator is simply acting to implement fixed preferences over payoff allocations. We report on an experiment that allows us to study both positive (reward) and negative (punishment) reciprocal action in a single framework. Knowing the preferences for payoff allocations is sufficient to account for nearly all the reciprocal action we observe in our experiment.

Global consumption of sugar-sweetened foods (SSF) is high, despite being linked with obesity(1). Motivations to eat SSF may contribute to high sugar intakes(2). The herb Gymnema sylvestre (GS) may reduce SSF consumption(3), but its effects on motivations to eat SSF are unknown. This study aimed to investigate effects of GS on adult’s motivations to eat SSF. The study used a placebo-controlled randomised cross-over method, of which seven participants (mean age of 34 ± 13.8 years; two males, five females) who self-identified as having a sweet tooth agreed to interview. A placebo mint was tested three times daily in-between meals (i.e., PLAC-SYS) for 14 days, before random allocation to one of two GS treatments for a second 14-day period, crossing over GS treatments in a final 14-day period. The GS treatments were identical GS-containing mints, administered systematically three times daily in-between meals (i.e., GS-SYS); or ad-libitum up to six times daily (i.e., GS-ADLIB). Each participant completed four 30-minute interviews – at baseline and after each 14-day testing period – to capture perspectives on changes in motivations, and the effects of treatments on SSF intake. Interviews occurred on Zoom software or in person, according to participant preference. Interview transcripts were uploaded to NVivo, and themes regarding motivations to eat SSF were identified and explored to ascertain effects on participant’s behaviour during each treatment, and what influenced their motivations. Baseline motivations to eat or to avoid SSF were categorised in psychological, external, habitual, hedonistic and physiological themes (except none habitually avoided SSF). Baseline motivations to eat and avoid SSF were influenced by deliberate decisions to change lifestyles and external factors (e.g., occupations). During testing of PLAC-SYS, GS-SYS and GS-ADLIB, participants’ motivations were affected by each treatment and external factors. At all stages participants were still motivated hedonistically to eat SSF. Compared to PLAC-SYS, both GS treatments were more effective because they reduced pleasure derived from SSF more and enhanced mindful eating. Four participants preferred GS-SYS to GS-ADLIB because of taste preference, and because it was more effective at changing behaviours around eating SSF. Participants also reported self-control of SSF intake changed because of GS-ADLIB (but not GS-SYS or PLAC-SYS) and external factors. Overall, reported self-control levels varied during the study, mostly because of external factors rather than the effects of GS-ADLIB. Compared to PLAC-SYS, both GS treatments may increase motivations to avoid SSF. The herb may be useful in interventions already utilising mindful eating by increasing the time between initial motivations to eat, and actually eating SSF. External factors also affect how in control individuals feel over SSF intake; GS-ADLIB may enhance self-control. Interventions supporting navigation of changing external factors, combined with GS, could be particularly effective in reducing SSF intake.

In 2014, eight years prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian-backed separatists seized parts of the Ukrainian regions Luhansk and Donetsk. Shortly thereafter, thousands of Ukrainians voluntarily enrolled to various paramilitary battalions. Unlike the Right Sector's Volunteer Ukrainian Corps (RS VUC), almost all battalions were incorporated into Ukrainian official defence structures. Applying uncertainty-identity theory and based on interviews, observations, and documents, this study investigates the attractiveness of RS VUC prior to the 2022 war, motivating the fighters to join this organisation and to remain in it. The study found that fighters of RS VUC distrusted society, the wider population, and state authorities. RS VUC, with its high fighting morale, discipline, family-like relationships between fighters, as well as its clear ideology and boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, were attractive to the fighters since its unambiguous group prototypes and high entitativity, reduced the fighters’ self-uncertainty regarding their social identity in an uncertain environment. The findings also revealed that the fighters’ choice to join RS VUC can be understood as a rational decision, since RS VUC's group entitativity provided the fighters with moral and emotional benefits, as well as maximised their chances of survival.

Using applications to change behaviors is a popular trend in recent years as mobiles are the easiest recording medium for users. However, few users can keep the behavior change for a long time. The aim of this study is to investigate motivations of keeping an application-tracked behavior change to provide effective and promote effective and targeted suggestions for application-tracked behavior intervention design practitioners and researchers. A 28-day self-report experiment and following “focus group” discussion have been conducted to detect the possible motivations. The results indicated 8 motivations which can affect maintaining behavior change: cooperation, competition, award, reminder and alarm, trust and willingness, relation with disease information and unplanned events. In addition, the results explore some motivations from negative data in applications or the cheating for good performance data behavior. At the same time, the study suggested the functions needed in future behavior change applications.

L’homicide pathologique survient dans un contexte psychoaffectif morbide avec des motivations toujours affectives. Les impulsions au meurtre, les crimes immotivés reste un symptôme clinique de la plus haute importance. Elle évolue par accès revêtant un caractère mixte à la fois discordant et psychopathique. Entre les accès, l’existence d’un minimum de trouble et le sujet peut souvent mener une vie proche de la normale. Il s agit de deux jeunes hommes de milieu différent ayant commis chacun un homicide sans aucun motif. Leur passage à l’acte est trop complexe pour n’être qu’un signe ou qu’un symptôme. Dans notre expertise, il est question de restituer une image la plus fidèle possible de notre compréhension de ce qui se joue sur la scène de la violence intime du sujet.