Civic-Mindedness Is More Than Personality
Untangling the Overlapping Constructs of Service Motivation, Civic Efficacy, and the Big Five
Abstract
Abstract: Many colleges and universities have embraced the goal of increasing students’ civic-mindedness. The research associated with theorizing and measuring civic-mindedness, however, has thus far progressed in a silo away from the established literature of personality psychology. This paper bridges this gap – adopting civic efficacy and service motivation as two measures of civic-mindedness – and examines how well they are explained by the five-factor model of personality (FFM). Using survey data from undergraduate students at a large, public research university, we estimated a structural equation model to measure personality traits from the FFM, service motivation, and civic efficacy. Results showed that variation in personality accounts for approximately 40% of the variation in Service Motivation and 53% of the variation in Civic Efficacy, which does not support a clear assertion that either construct can neatly be categorized as a facet of the FFM. Our findings provide an additional theoretical basis for community service learning courses and other educational opportunities that blend traditional pedagogical strategies with experiential and reflective opportunities aiming to produce change across state-like and trait-like attributes.
References
1999). Long-term effects of volunteerism during the undergraduate years. The Review of Higher Education, 22(2), 187–202.
(2022). Evaluating the Big Five as an organizing framework for commonly used psychological trait scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 122(4), 749–777. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000395
(1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
(1998).
(Self-efficacy . In H. S. FriedmanEd., Encyclopedia of mental health (pp. 421–432). Academic Press.2005). Restoring the balance between academics and civic engagement in public schools. American Youth Policy Forum. http://www.politicipublice.ro/uploads/Restoring_the_Balance_Report.pdf
(1981). Higher learning in the nation’s service. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
(1995). A service-learning curriculum for faculty. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 2(1), 112–122. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/4591
(2010). Educating for informed community involvement. American Journal of Community Psychology, 46(3–4), 428–441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9340-y
(2020). Civic-minded graduate: Additional evidence. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 26(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0026.101
(2005). Implementing a Five-Factor Personality Inventory for use on the Internet. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 21(2), 115–127. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.21.2.115
(2018). Political trust in a cynical age. Annual Review of Political Science, 21(1), 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050316-092550
(2003). Educating citizens: Preparing America’s undergraduates for lives of moral and civic responsibility. Jossey-Bass.
(2003).
(Nonresponse in cross-cultural and cross-national surveys . In J. HarknessF. van de VijverP. MohlerEds., Cross-cultural survey methods (pp. 157–177). Wiley.2020). The Big Five Inventory – 2: Replication of psychometric properties in a Dutch adaptation and first evidence for the discriminant predictive validity of the facet scales. Journal of Personality Assessment, 102(3), 309–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2018.1539004
(2016). Scale development: Theory and applications. SAGE Publications.
(1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Macmillan.
(2017). Citizenship education at school in Europe – 2017. Publicantions Office of the European Union. https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/eurydice/content/citizenship-education-school-europe-%E2%80%93-2017_en
. (2019). Personality traits and socio-demographic variables as predictors of political interest and voting behavior in a British cohort. Journal of Individual Differences, 40(2), 118–125. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000283
(2016). The agreeable bureaucrat: Personality and PSM. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 29(6), 582–595. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-12-2015-0218
(2008). The public role of professionals: Developing and evaluating the Civic-Minded Professional Scale. Indiana University. https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1703/Dissertation%20FINAL.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
(2017).
(Civic outcomes in higher education . In J. A. HatcherR. G. BringleT. W. HahnEds., Research on student civic outcomes in service learning: Conceptual frameworks and methods (pp. 25–44). Routledge.2012). Social and economic returns to college education in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 38(1), 379–400. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102503
(1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
(2012). The effect of personality traits on public service motivation: Evidence from Taiwan. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 40(5), 725–733. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2012.40.5.725
(2013). Test theory: A unified treatment. Psychology Press.
(2011). Democratic deficit: Critical citizens revisited. Cambridge University Press.
(1994). Psychometric theory. McGraw-Hill.
(2010). Personality and motivational antecedents of activism and civic engagement. Journal of Personality, 78(6), 1703–1734. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00667.x
(1996). Measuring public service motivation: An assessment of construct reliability and validity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024303
(1990). The motivational bases of public service. Public Administration Review, 50(3), 367–373. https://doi.org/10.2307/976618
(2013). Education and political participation. British Journal of Political Science, 45, 689–703.
(2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin, 135(2), 322–338. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014996
(2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster.
(2012). Psychological correlates of university students’ academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 353–387. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026838
(2012). Character compass: How powerful school culture can point students towards success. Harvard Education Press.
(2019). Understanding the model size effect on SEM fit indices. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 79(2), 310–334. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164418783530
(2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117–143.
(2011). Civic-minded graduate: A north star. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 18(1), 19–33. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/4592
(2005). The hunt for the last respondent: Nonresponse in sample surveys. Sociaal en Cultureel Planbu.
(2020). Becoming productive 21st century citizens: A systematic review uncovering design principles for integrating community service learning into higher education courses. Educational Research, 62(4), 390–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2020.1836987
(2015). Assessing civic competency and engagement in higher education: Research background, frameworks, and directions for next-generation assessment. ETS Research Report Series, 2015(2), 1–48. https://doi.org/10.1002/ets2.12081
(2009). Schools of democracy? Disentangling the relationship between civic participation and political action in 17 European countries. European Journal of Political Research, 48(2), 281–308. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2008.00836.x
(2023). Supplemental materials to “Civic-mindedness is more than personality: Untangling the overlapping constructs of service motivation, civic efficacy, and the Big Five”. https://osf.io/5dpjf/
(2019). ABMLS Pilot Report 2018–2019: Methodology and preliminary findings, https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/su64a
(2017). Public sector motivation ad fonts: Personality traits as antecedents of the motivation to serve the public interest. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muw027
(2004). Self-efficacy toward service, civic participation and the business student: Scale development and validation. Journal of Business Ethics, 49(4), 359–369. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BUSI.0000020881.58352.ab
(2014). Personality traits and the sense of civic duty. American Politics Research, 42(1), 90–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X13484172
(2014).
(Model fit and model selection in structural equation modeling . In R. H. HoyleEd., Handbook of structural equation modeling (pp. 209–232). Guilford Press.2010). Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data (2nd ed.). MIT Press.
(