Helping individuals or group members? The role of individual and collective identification in AIDS volunteerism

This article presents a group-level perspective on helping that was tested in the context of AIDS volunteerism. It was predicted and found that homose xuals were more willing to volunteer when collective identification in term s of sexual orientation was high. The opposite trend was found for heterose xuals. Also as predicted, homosexuals were less willing to volunteer when i dentification as a unique individual was high, whereas the opposite was aga in true for heterosexuals. Thus, AIDS volunteerism emerged as a form of int ragroup helping for homosexuals and as a form of interindividual helping fo r heterosexuals. In addition, identification with the AIDS volunteer servic e organization proved to be a positive predictor of AIDS volunteerism regar dless of sexual orientation. Finally, two individual motivations emerged as positive predictors, namely, gaining knowledge and understanding emerged f or homosexuals and expressing humanitarian values emerged for heterosexuals . The results are summarized in a dual-pathway model of volunteerism.