Four Motives for Community Involvement

A conceptual analysis is offered that differentiates four types of motivation for community involvement: egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principlism. Differentiation is based on identification of a unique ultimate goal for each motive. For egoism, the ultimate goal is to increase one’s own welfare; for al-truism, it is to increase the welfare of another individual or individuals; for col-lectivism, to increase the welfare of a group; and for principlism, to uphold one or more moral principles. As sources of community involvement, each of these four forms of motivation has its strengths; each also has its weaknesses. More effective efforts to stimulate community involvement may come from strategies that orchestrate motives so that the strengths of one motive can overcome weak-nesses of another. Among the various possibilities, strategies that combine ap-peals to either altruism or collectivism with appeals to principle may be especially promising. In The Prince, Machiavelli (1513/1908) imagined himself offering counsel to a public official who wished to provide the best life for his people. The worldly wisdom that Machiavelli provided has stood the test of time. We have no illusions that we can give advice that is as wise or enduring, but we borrowed Machiavelli’s literary device and tried to imagine ourselves in a similar situation. A local civic leader—the mayor, let us say—comes to us for help. The mayor is genuinely concerned about the quality of life in town. People seem too absorbed in meeting their own needs, in securing their share of the good life. The mayor worries about ∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to C. Daniel Batson, De-