Individualism Revisited: Moral Worldviews, Motivation, and Civic Engagement

This paper investigates the extent to which substantively distinct moral worldviews are associated with different rates and types of civic engagement. Following Lichterman (1995; 1996), we acknowledge that individualistic moral worldviews can and do motivate civic engagement. However, based on an analysis of survey data from a national probability sample of Americans, we find that, controlling for other important factors associated with civic engagement, a moral worldview emphasizing civic responsibility is more likely to encourage volunteer efforts in communities than is an emphasis on personal fulfillment. This supports the arguments of Bellah and colleagues ([1985] 1996) that individualism weakens commitment to public action, at least relative to more communitarian moral worldviews. We also find that a worldview emphasizing religious duty is more likely to promote volunteer efforts to serve members of one’s religious congregation than is personal fulfillment. We discuss the implications of these findings for the study of social capital and for understanding the motivational role of culture in action.