From Heroism Motivation to Civic Engagement: The Role of Self-Construals

Abstract

Heroism is an expression of self-actualization and a pinnacle social state that is of fundamental interest to humanistic psychology. Heroes help individuals understand the values and norms within society and prompt individuals to do what they can for those who need help. We examine the relationship between the motivation to act heroically and civic engagement and explore how self-construals offer insights into this relationship. In two studies, we found that heroism motivation was a significant and consistent predictor of civic engagement. Furthermore, we found that the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement was explained by self-construals. More specifically, we found that heroism motivation was indirectly related to civic engagement when people adopted an interdependent self-construal (but not an independent self-construal). The findings from the present research contribute to our understanding of how the motivation to behave heroically affects civic engagement and demonstrate the importance of self-construals for the link between these types of motivation and behavior.

Keywords

heroes heroism motivation civic engagement self-construals

Dee is unsatisfied with the way their country’s political system has developed. Dee has long been inspired by individuals who can make a difference against all odds, such as Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr., and thinks that the time has come for them to step up. For some time, Dee has felt a calling to move things forward, progressing social change through civic engagement.

Civic engagement can be defined as an organized voluntary activity focused on addressing and identifying issues of public concern (American Psychological Association [APA], 2016).¹ It describes the way individuals participate in the life of a community to improve conditions for others and help shape the community’s future (Adler & Goggin, 2005). Civic engagement includes activities such as engaging in community services, joining environment-related organizations, and donating money to civic-related organizations (Gil de Zúñiga, 2012). Civic engagement can also include political participation, such as engaging in demonstrations or protests, signing a petition, and attending political campaigns (Valenzuela et al., 2009). In essence, civic engagement usually requires individuals to step out of their comfort zone and seek to influence a community or society (Albanesi et al., 2007; Lin, 2019).

Civic engagement is important for individual and collective development and is an essential part of a thriving and healthy community (Sanderson et al., 2019). Researchers found that higher levels of social capital and trust, self-efficacy, feelings of personal responsibility, and higher levels of community attachment are associated with an increased level of civic engagement (Martinez & McMullin, 2004; Pradhananga & Davenport, 2017; Story & Forsyth, 2008). These studies provide important information about who is more likely to engage in civic behaviors. Wray-Lake et al. (2019) found that civic engagement was related to higher well-being, and this association was mediated in part through psychological needs satisfaction. In addition, Wray-Lake and Shubert (2019) highlighted the role of civic discussions in sustaining and increasing youth civic engagement and found that civic discussions with parents and friends predicted stability and change in civic engagement across adolescence. Despite these findings, no research has explored the relationship between heroism motivation and civic engagement. To shed more light on the issue, the present research examines whether people’s motivation to act heroically (i.e., heroism motivation), a strong prosocial motivation, predicts civic engagement.

Similar to civic engagement, sustained or brief acts of heroism are an essential part of the fabric of society. Heroes help individuals understand the values and norms within society and prompt individuals to do what they can for those who need help (Allison & Goethals, 2016). Witnessing heroism plays an important motivational role in inspiring people toward helping or prosocial actions (Franco et al., 2018). Some have defined heroism as “the ideal of citizens transforming civic virtue into the highest form of civic action” (Franco et al., 2011, p. 99). On closer analysis, heroism is a multi-faceted term that typically relates to a myriad of characteristics such as bravery, self-sacrifice, moral integrity, risk-taking, and courage (Kinsella et al., 2015a). Klisanin (2016, 2017) argued that collaborative heroism could be a powerful means of promoting positive social change by creating a shared sense of responsibility and commitment to addressing various global issues. Heroism can also be considered a specific form of prosocial behavior (Margana et al., 2019). It usually signals an intention to take risks for another and can be demonstrated by means of civil courage (Greitemeyer et al., 2007). While heroes often show altruism and civil engagement, heroic behavior is generally thought to comprise greater levels of sacrifice and risk (Franco et al., 2011). In recent years, the topics of heroes and heroism have drawn considerable attention from humanistic psychology and have inspired a great number of studies on the function of heroes, the characteristics of heroes, and the conditions of heroism (Allison et al., 2017; Coughlan et al., 2017; Kinsella et al., 2015a, 2015b; Sun et al., 2023).

There are many reasons why an individual may engage in heroic behavior. Researchers have argued that heroes and heroism imbue life with meaning for onlookers and that engaging in heroic behaviors may bolster meaning in life for the hero themselves (Kinsella et al., 2017). Engaging in heroic behaviors may correspond with fulfilling basic human needs, such as belonging, certainty, and self-actualization. Engaging in heroic behavior may also enhance one’s sense of purpose, self-efficacy, and social efficacy as consequences of pursuing goals (Kinsella et al., 2019). Research has shown that both individual differences and contextual factors influence the extent to which people are driven to engage in heroic behavior. Recent research has begun to examine patterns of heroic motivation and other psychological variables. For instance, Igou et al. (2018) demonstrated that heroism motivation was stronger for individuals with high self-enhancement needs than those with lower self-enhancement needs. This suggests that the motivation to behave heroically is associated with a need to have positive views about oneself. In addition, those researchers found that the negative experiences of regret increase the motivation to engage in heroic behaviors as a means to re-establish a sense of meaning in life. These findings support the notion that engagement in heroic actions can serve as a source of meaning (Kinsella et al., 2019) and that there may be different motivational reasons why individuals engage in heroic behavior. We argue that the way people understand the self and its relationship to others is central to the relationship between heroism motivation and civic engagement.

Heroism Motivation and Civic Engagement: The Role of Self-Construals

Self-construal is conceptualized as “a constellation of feelings, thoughts, and actions concerning one’s relationship to others, and self as distinct from others” (Singelis, 1994, p. 581). It includes two dimensions: interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal. An interdependent self-construal emphasizes the social connectedness of the self and prioritizes harmony in social relationships, whereas an independent self-construal emphasizes uniqueness and separateness from others and focuses on internal attributes (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).²

Specifically, independent self-construal emphasizes the importance of capabilities, independence, and the realization of individual potential. For example, individuals who are higher in independent self-construal are more likely to emphasize being unique, promote personal goals, and believe that self-worth is found in personal achievement. According to previous studies, self-enhancement, which allows people to build and maintain their positive self-views, is much more common among those with more independent self-construal than those with more interdependent self-construal (Heine & Hamamura, 2007). Interdependent self-construal makes individuals feel more connected to others (Gardner et al., 1999). It highlights the importance of belonging and group memberships in a person’s self-representation. For example, individuals who are higher in interdependent self-construal are more likely to see themselves as intertwined with others and may take relationships, social roles, and public status into account (Levinson et al., 2011; Zhu et al., 2007). Research also found that participants who are higher in interdependent self-construal tend to regulate their actions in terms of the needs of those around them (Downie et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2018), and an interdependent self-construal is strongly associated with empathy, such as more other-oriented behaviors across different situations (see Cross et al., 2011; Ma-Kellams & Blascovich, 2012).

According to Pavey et al. (2011), relatedness is a fundamental psychological need that is particularly important for promoting prosocial behavior. Previous research found that the personal motivation to act prosocially is influenced by the extent to which people consider themselves connected with others (Duclos & Barasch, 2014). For example, Markus and Kitayama (1991) demonstrated that individuals with an interdependent self-construal are more likely to be motivated by other-oriented goals. Hu et al. (2016) found that higher levels of interdependent self-construal were associated with increased community participation. Bos et al. (2007) also demonstrated that interdependent self-construal was positively associated with participants’ acceptance of civic behaviors and participation. Given that heroism signals an intention to take risks for another and sacrifice their well-being for the greater good of the community (Jayawickreme & DiStefano, 2012), we propose that heroism motivation may promote feelings of connectedness with others (i.e., interdependent-self-construal), which in turn predict greater civic engagement. Hence, interdependent self-construal may provide a valuable link between heroism motivation and civic engagement.

Given that previous studies showed that self-construals influence personal motivation to act prosocially (Bos et al., 2007; Duclos & Barasch, 2014; Xin et al., 2017), we hypothesized that self-construals explain the relationship between heroism motivation and civic engagement.

The Present Research

We propose that heroism motivation is positively associated with civic engagement. Specifically, people with stronger motivation to act heroically tend to express the intention of civic engagement. In addition, we expected that the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement is mediated through interdependent self-construal. We conducted two studies that examined the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement and the mediating role of self-construals in the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement. Specifically, we hypothesized as follows:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): Heroism motivation is directly associated with civic engagement.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): Heroism motivation is indirectly associated with civic engagement via interdependent self-construal.

Both studies received ethical approval from the authors’ institution.

Study 1

To better understand the factors that predict civic engagement, we tested our prediction that heroism motivation would be associated with greater civic engagement. In addition, we also assessed the mediating role of self-construals in the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement.

Method

Participants

A priori Monte Carlo power analysis (Schoemann et al., 2017) informed that a sample size of 220 participants is required to detect indirect effects with two parallel mediators with 80% power. We recruited a total of 290 participants for this study. Due to non-completion and missing data, nine participants were excluded from the data set, resulting in a total of 281 (128 females, 153 males; 135 Irish, 146 Chinese). They were aged between 18 and 55 years, with a mean age of 26.36 years (SD = 7.29). Participants were recruited through online social networks by using snowball sampling techniques.³

Materials and Procedure

People who expressed interest in the study were directed to a website hosted by Qualtrics. They were required to read the study information and consent form. After signing consent forms, participants reported demographic information, including age, gender, and nationality.⁴

Heroism Motivation

Participants then filled out a four-item measure of heroism motivation (Igou et al., 2018). Participants were instructed to think about their life, who they want to be, and what they want to be known for. They then indicated their agreement on scales from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). The four statements include, “I want to behave heroically towards others if it is necessary and I have the opportunity to do so”; “It is important to me to be seen as someone who can act heroically”; “I strive to be a hero for other people if the situation requires someone to step up”; and “It is significant to my life to be seen as someone who has the qualities of a hero.” The scale was reliable (α = .87). See Supplementary Material for information regarding the validity of the scale.

Civic Engagement

Civic engagement was indexed by political engagement, pro-environmental engagement, and civic engagement attitudes (α = .84). Specifically, participants filled out a five-item measure of political engagement (Alesina & Giuliano, 2011). These items measured participants’ experience or likelihood of engagement in four political actions (e.g., signing a petition). Participants were asked to rate each item on a Likert-type scale: 1 (would never do), 2 (might do), and 3 (have done). Participants then filled out a three-item measure of pro-environmental engagement (e.g., whether participants are active members or not members of an environmental organization; Tam & Chan, 2018). Participants were asked to respond with either 0 (no) or 1 (yes). Afterward, participants responded to the eight items measuring civic engagement attitudes (Doolittle & Faul, 2013). Participants indicated their agreement on a scale from 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree) to items (e.g., “I feel responsible for my community”).

Self-Construal

Participants then responded to the 30-item Self-Construal Scale (SCS; Singelis, 1994) to measure how participants view themselves in relation to others. A 15-item subscale measures how much participants see their self as separate, unique, and independent from others (e.g., “I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects”), while another 15-item subscale assesses how much participants see their self as connected, similar, and interdependent with others (e.g., “I often have the feeling that my relationships with others are more important than my own accomplishments”). Participants were required to respond using a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Both the Independent Self-Construal and the Interdependent Self-Construal subscales were reliable (α = .74 and α = .73, respectively). At the end of the study, participants were debriefed and thanked.

Results

Correlations between heroism motivation, civic engagement, interdependent self-construal, and independent self-construal are presented in Table 1. Normality, linearity, and multicollinearity assumptions were assessed, and all assumptions were met. See the Supplementary Material for cultural similarities and differences in main variables.

Table 1.

Pearson’s Correlations Between the Study Variables in Study 1.

Variable	1	2	3
Heroism Motivation	—	—	—
Civic Engagement	.33***	—	—
Interdependent Self-Construal	.34***	.30***	—
Independent Self-Construal	.26***	.24***	.27***

***

p < .001.

We proceeded to examine the indirect association between heroism motivation and civic engagement via independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal (Figure 1). To estimate this, we used PROCESS (Version 3; Hayes, 2018), Model 4 (5,000 bootstraps), where heroism motivation was entered as the predictor, independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal as the mediator, and civic engagement as the criterion. We found heroism motivation had a total effect on civic engagement, B = .36, SE = .09, p < .001, 95% confidence interval (CI) [.18, .52], and the direct effect of heroism motivation on civic engagement was also statistically significant, B = .24, p = .008, SE = .09, 95% CI [.06, .42]. Heroism motivation was significantly related to independent self-construal, B = .19, SE = .06, p = .002, 95% CI [.07, .30], and interdependent self-construal, B = .26, SE = .05, p < .001, 95% CI [.15, .36]. Importantly, interdependent self-construal significantly predicted civic engagement, B = .32, SE = .12, p =.01, 95% CI [.08, .55]. The indirect effect of heroism motivation on civic engagement through interdependent self-construal was significant, B = .08, 95% CI [.02, .16].

Figure 1.

The Mediation Model Between Heroism Motivation and Civic Engagement Through Independent Self-Construal and Interdependent Self-Construa in Study 1.

The results from Study 1 suggest that heroism motivation is a significant predictor of civic engagement. Participants who scored higher on heroism motivation reported being more willing to engage in civic actions. Furthermore, the results suggest that the mediating effects of self-construals may contribute to understanding the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement. Specifically, heroism motivation is indirectly associated with civic engagement via interdependent self-construal.

Study 2

The aim of Study 2 was to employ different measurements of civic engagements to examine the robustness and generality of the effects of Study 1. While there is broad agreement about academic definitions of civic engagement, there are different everyday interpretations of the types of actions that could fall under that heading (Doolittle & Faul, 2013; Sanderson et al., 2019). Some researchers argued that it is not necessary to focus on the type of civic action to which individuals are committed but rather to consider individuals’ orientation toward civic engagement (e.g., Zaff et al., 2011). Therefore, in this study, we focused on general tendencies toward civic engagement.

Method

Participants and Designs

A total of 270 participants were recruited for this study (145 females, 125 males; 137 American, 133 Chinese). They were aged between 18 and 51 years, with a mean age of 24.33 years (SD = 5.86). American participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Each participant was compensated with US$0.25 for their participation. We recruited Chinese participants via Credamo.⁵ Each participant was compensated with 2 CNY (around US$0.25) for their participation.

Materials and Procedure

As in Study 1, participants filled out a four-item measure (α = .79) of heroism motivation (Igou et al., 2018). See Supplementary Material for information regarding the validity of the scale.

Afterward, participants responded to the 14-item measuring civic engagement (Doolittle & Faul, 2013). Participants indicated their agreement on a scale from 1 (disagree) to 7 (agree) to items such as, “I feel responsible for my community”; “I help members of my community”; and “I participate in discussions that raise issues of social responsibility” (α = .93). Participants then responded to 30-item SCS (Singelis, 1994) to measure how participants view themselves in relation to others. Both the Independent Self-Construal and the Interdependent Self-Construal subscales were reliable (α = .77 and α = .82, respectively). Finally, participants were debriefed and thanked.

Results

Correlations between heroism motivation, civic engagement, interdependent self-construal, and independent self-construal have been presented in Table 2. Normality, linearity, and multicollinearity assumptions were assessed, and all assumptions were met. See the Supplementary Material for cultural similarities and differences in main variables. We proceeded to examine the indirect association between heroism motivation and civic engagement via independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal (Figure 2). To estimate this, we used PROCESS (Version 3; Hayes, 2018), Model 4 (5,000 bootstraps), where heroism motivation was entered as the predictor, independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal as the mediator, and civic engagement as the criterion. We found heroism motivation had a total effect on civic engagement, B = .55, SE = .10, p < .001, 95% CI [.35, .75], and the direct effect of heroism motivation on civic engagement was also statistically significant, B = .30, SE = .11, p = .006, 95% CI [.09, .52]. In addition, heroism motivation was significantly related to independent self-construal, B = .32, SE = .06, p < .001, 95% CI [.19, .44], and interdependent self-construal, B = .45, SE = .07, p < .001, 95% CI [.32, .59]. Moreover, interdependent self-construal significantly predicted civic engagement, B = .53, SE = .12, p < .001, 95% CI [.29, .77]. The indirect effect of heroism motivation on civic engagement through interdependent self-construal was significant, B = .24, 95% CI [.12, .37].

Table 2.

Pearson’s Correlations Between the Study Variables in Study 2.

Variable	1	2	3
Heroism Motivation	—	—	—
Civic Engagement	.38***	—	—
Interdependent Self-Construal	.48***	.46***	—
Independent Self-Construal	.39***	.27***	.54***

***

p < .001.

Figure 2.

The Mediation Model Between Heroism Motivation and Civic Engagement Through Independent Self-Construal and Interdependent Self-Construal in Study 2.

Study 2 provides further support for the hypothesis that heroism motivation is a significant predictor of civic engagement. The mediating effects of self-construals contribute to understanding the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement. Taken together, this offers us further reliable evidence in support of our hypotheses.

General Discussion

The aim of this research was to examine the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement and the role of self-construals in this association. The two studies presented here offer two main contributions to the existing literature: first, they show that the motivation to engage in heroic activities is related to civic engagement, and second, they indicate that the association between heroism motivation and civic engagement is statistically explained by how individuals construe their identity and think about themselves in relation to others.

Importantly, we found that heroism motivation was a significant predictor of civic engagement. That is, participants who scored higher on heroism motivation tended to be more willing to engage in civic actions. Previous research found that individuals who were more intensely engaged in the reflection of purpose and meaning in life tended to report higher levels of civic engagement (Lin, 2019). Also, Scales et al. (2014) found that when young individuals demonstrated stronger attempts to discover meaning in their own life, they also tended to have a stronger intention of civic engagement (e.g., voluntary service and pro-environmental behavior). Our findings add to the literature by showing that an individual’s motivation to act heroically is associated with civic engagement.

There are several elements that can be viewed as binding heroism motivation and civic engagement together conceptually. Civic engagement reflects a broader interest in the common good, and it requires individuals to self-sacrifice and act for the cause in the future (Amnå, 2012). Similarly, heroism symbolizes the ideal of citizens transforming civic virtue into the highest form of civic action, accepting physical peril or social sacrifice (Franco et al., 2011). When people show the motivation to act heroically, they stand up for what is right and contribute to better societal conditions despite potential risks (Halmburger et al., 2017). Thus, heroism motivation may inspire individuals to engage in civic behaviors. In addition, heroism motivation is not an often-used concept. Most studies to date on civic engagement have focused on how personal values relate to civic engagement (e.g., Pacheco & Owen, 2015; Vecchione et al., 2015). However, the current research indicates that heroism motivation also relates to civic attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, the Heroism Motivation scale (Igou et al., 2018) could have predictive value for societal or everyday life concerns.

We also found heroism motivation is indirectly associated with civic engagement via interdependent self-construal. That is, the increase of interdependent self-construal through heroism motivation explains, in part, the increase in civic engagement. Interdependent self-construal refers to the construal of the self as being fundamentally connected to other people or social groups (Singelis, 1994). Previous research emphasized the critical role of interdependence in strengthening commitment to civic engagement. For example, researchers found that political participation and community participation are associated with interdependence factors, such as a sense of community and social capital (Xin et al., 2017). Hu et al. (2016) showed higher interdependent self-construal was related to the increase in community participation. Interdependent self-construal is highly related to social connectedness, and research has found that people with highly interdependent self-construal are also more likely to participate in prosocial activities (Burton et al., 2012; Seo & Scammon, 2014). The current study further suggested that interdependent self-construal could mediate the link between heroism motivation and civic engagement. Heroism motivation may trigger self-focus goals but may also trigger an outward focus, where people are more concerned with others than the self (Kinsella et al., 2017). Green and Merle (2013) demonstrated that civic engagement behavior often requires behaving in collectivistic ways to achieve certain goals. As people tend to achieve other-oriented goals (e.g., behave heroically toward others and make changes), levels of interdependent self-construal increase, which in turn fosters and enhances civic engagement. Thus, it is possible that heroism motivation makes people feel more connected with other people and enhances the motivation to include other people in the self, thereby identifying strongly with societies or communities and increasing engagement in civic actions (Mashek et al., 2007). The present research makes an important contribution to the literature on transformations of individual motivations and how people view themselves in relation to others to civic engagement.

The current research has several limitations that should be addressed. First, the studies used only correlational design, making it difficult to have a comprehensive understanding of the correlation and causal relationship between heroism motivation, self-construals, and civic engagement. Experimental studies that vary the salience of self-construals (e.g., Gardner et al., 1999; Grossmann & Jowhari, 2018; Liu et al., 2019) could be carried out in the future to examine further the causality of the relationships identified in the current research. Second, it is suggested that future research examines the qualities of the Heroism Motivation scale, including its construct and predictive validity. Third, although cultural differences in heroism motivation and civic engagement are not central to our examination in this project, we included participants from three countries—Ireland, China, and the United States. It is suggested that future research examine the effects of cultural factors (e.g., collectivism vs. individualism) on heroism motivation and civic engagement (building on recent work by Sun et al., 2023).

Conclusion

Researchers in the social sciences have puzzled over how to get individuals involved in efforts to solve collective problems. Indeed, with increasing reports of tensions on the grounds of politics, race, religion, and other (often) polarizing topics, there is arguably a need to focus on social-psychological factors that promote other-orientation, generativity, and the building of stronger community bonds. Social change happens not by chance occurrence but rather by linking people together in a common cause and shared purpose (Nardini et al., 2021). The current research is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between heroism motivation and civic engagement, and the role of self-construals in understanding the linkages between heroism motivation and civic engagement. The present findings imply that individual motivations that seem individualistic transfer to social action tendencies that could affect society and community life.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-jhp-10.1177_00221678231177561 – Supplemental material for From Heroism Motivation to Civic Engagement: The Role of Self-Construals

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jhp-10.1177_00221678231177561 for From Heroism Motivation to Civic Engagement: The Role of Self-Construals by Yuning Sun, Eric R. Igou and Elaine L. Kinsella in Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Kevin O’Malley for sharing his data on heroism motivation, which allowed us to test the validity of the scale.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Yuning Sun

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Yuning Sun is a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. He holds academic qualifications from the National College of Ireland (BA) and the University of Limerick (MSc). His major research interests lie in the areas of person perception and social cognition.

Eric R. Igou is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology in the Education and Health Sciences Faculty at the University of Limerick. He received his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 2000 under the supervision of Herbert Bless. Since then, he worked at the University of Mannheim, the New School University, and New York University during his post-doc fellowship (2002–2004), Tilburg University (tenured; 2004–2008), and the University of Limerick (since 2008). He developed two master’s programs and has served in teaching and managerial-related roles such as course director, academic coordinator, and head of department. His research centers on experimental existential psychology, person perception, and human biases in judgment and decision-making.

Elaine L. Kinsella is a senior lecturer and chartered psychologist at the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. She began her career as a work and organizational psychologist, and holds academic qualifications from Queen’s University, Belfast (BSc), Liverpool John Moores University (MSc), and the University of Limerick (PhD). Her primary research includes social influences on health and empowerment, particularly in contexts relating to work, organizations, and the community.

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