Why some young people stick with social causes while others fade away

Young adults in the United States who support social causes due to internal moral convictions are more likely to anticipate staying engaged over time than those driven by a desire for social approval. Research published in Social Psychology Quarterly indicates that political ideology shapes these motivations, with liberals often acting from empathy and conservatives frequently relying on community approval. The researchers found that external motivations can still foster lasting commitment when tied to enduring social networks like religious groups.

When people participate in social, political, or religious causes, their reasons for getting involved typically fall into two categories. Internal motivation involves a deep personal commitment or moral dedication to an issue. External motivation involves acting to gain social approval or avoid punishment.

External motivation is often debated under the term performative activism on social media. Observers often view performative activism as actions that have minimal actual impact while maximizing public visibility for the person performing them.

Psychologists classify these motivational differences using self-determination theory. This framework suggests that while both internal and external motivations can prompt short-term action, internally motivated behaviors are generally more persistent.

Researchers E. Ashby Plant and Kyle Rose of Florida State University led a team to explore how these motivational sources affect participation among young adults. The researchers wanted to understand whether specific emotional responses to social causes encourage people to act for internal or external reasons. They also sought to determine how a person’s political ideology might influence their emotional and motivational approaches to social engagement.

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The research team began by conducting a survey of 934 young adults between the ages of 18 and 29. The participants answered questions about their online and offline involvement in political, religious, and civic activities over the past year. They also rated their intended engagement in these areas over the next twelve months.

Each person identified a primary cause that mattered most to them. They then rated statements assessing their internal and external motivations to act. For example, they indicated whether they promoted the cause because it was personally important or because they wanted to gain approval from others.

The participants also provided their political orientation and rated how strongly they felt certain emotions when thinking about their primary cause. The researchers categorized these emotions as either self-focused, such as pride and guilt, or other-focused, such as empathy and anger directed at wrongdoers.

The survey results showed that both internal and external motivations were associated with participants taking action in the past. When predicting future behavior, however, only internal motivation was linked to intended ongoing engagement.

Emotions played a distinct role in these motivational pathways. Participants with high internal motivation tended to experience other-focused emotions, alongside feeling positive about themselves and reporting lower levels of guilt. Those with high external motivation were more likely to report self-focused emotions, including both pride and guilt.

Political ideology strongly influenced these patterns. Liberal participants reported higher levels of empathy, negative emotions directed at others, and internal motivation. The data indicated that their tendency to experience empathy and anger statistically accounted for their higher internal motivation.

Conservative participants reported higher levels of pride and external motivation. The researchers found that feelings of pride statistically explained their tendency to rely on external motivation for their activism.

To gain deeper insight into these survey patterns, the researchers conducted follow-up interviews with 30 of the participants. They selected ten liberals, ten moderates, and ten conservatives to answer open-ended questions about their motivations and feelings regarding social engagement. Two independent researchers coded the interview transcripts to identify expressions of motivation and emotion.

During the interviews, liberal participants frequently emphasized their internal motivations and explicitly rejected the idea of acting for social reputation. They framed their participation as a moral responsibility and expressed anger about injustice, along with frustration toward people who remained apathetic.

Liberal interviewees also highlighted the emotional toll of their activism. As one liberal participant explained about managing anger, “There’s two types of anger. There’s anger that fuels you, and there’s anger that burns you.”

Conservative participants often described their engagement in terms of social interaction and community building. Many of these respondents tied their activism to their religious faith, which provided a supportive network that encouraged their involvement.

These individuals often expressed pride and satisfaction in seeing the tangible results of their group’s efforts, such as distributing donations to people in need. Another participant described the tangible satisfaction of directly helping people, such as bringing coats to those in need, saying, “It feels like, okay, this is actually making a difference.”

The interview responses suggested that the traditional divide between internal and external motivation might be less rigid for individuals motivated by faith. For many conservative participants, a desire for approval from their religious community or God functioned as a highly stable form of external motivation.

The study relied on survey data collected at a single point in time, which restricts the researchers from establishing a cause-and-effect relationship between emotion, motivation, and engagement. People’s feelings and motivations might evolve as they spend more time participating in a cause.

Participants reported their own past and future behaviors, which can sometimes differ from objective reality. Tracking actual activities, such as measuring the time spent on specific digital platforms or logging attendance at community events, could provide a more accurate picture of engagement.

Finally, the external motivation driven by a religious community might operate differently than external motivation aimed at impressing peers or the general public. A religious community or a belief in an ever-present deity might offer a permanent audience, making that specific type of external motivation unusually stable over time.

The study, “Social Engagement for Oneself and Others: The Roles of Motivation, Emotion, and Political Ideology,” was authored by E. Ashby Plant, Kyle Rose, Yuki Maynor, Levi Mitzen, Bayla K. Thompson, Deana A. Rohlinger, and Grant W. Bailey.