Prosocial Individual Values and Collective Action: Does the Societal Culture/Institution Matter?

We propose a theoretical model showing the effects of social culture/institutions on the relationship between prosocial individual values and collective action. We predict that, regardless of social culture/institutions, the personal prosocial values (both the one for human beings and that for the environment) at the individual level have a positive relationship with people's participation in collective action. Conducting regression and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses of survey data from 28,618 subjects in 29 countries, we found evidence supporting our prediction. Moreover, surprisingly, most of the cultural values at the societal level have no significant effects on the relationship. As for the four most commonly studied cultural values or dimensions at the societal level (i.e., individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity, and uncertainty avoidance), only power distance moderates negatively the relationship between the prosocial value for the environment and participation in collective action. In other words, in terms of their effects on people's participation in collective action, the effects of individual values are much more robust than those at the societal level. Finally, youth, males, and those who identify with a certain social group are more likely to participate in collective action. This is true even after controlling for the effects of the two-level cultural values. This study suggests that individual values can function independently from societal culture/institutions to influence people's social behaviors and activities, which has important implications for future research on social behaviors.