Some Benefits of Being an Activist: Measuring
Activism and Its Role in Psychological Well-Beingpops_724 755..778
Malte Klar
University of Göttingen
Tim Kasser
Knox College
Do activists lead happier and more fulfilled lives than the average person? Two online
surveys using a sample of college students (N = 341) and a national sample of activists
matched with a control group (N = 718) demonstrated that several indicators of activism
were positively associated with measures of hedonic, eudaimonic, and social well-being.
Furthermore, in both studies, activists were more likely to be “flourishing” (Keyes, 2002)
than were nonactivists. A third study of college students (N = 296) explored the possible
causal role of activism by measuring well-being after subjects either engaged in a brief
activist behavior, a brief nonactivist behavior, or no behavior. Although well-being did not
differ substantially between these three groups, the subjects who did the brief activist
behavior reported significantly higher levels of subjective vitality than did the subjects who
engaged in the nonactivist behavior. Potential mediators of the relationship between activ-
ism and well-being and the usefulness of these findings are discussed.
KEY WORDS: Activism, Well-being, Flourishing, Scales
“Which way of life is the more desirable—to join with other citizens and
share in the state’s activity, or to live in it like an alien, absolved from the
ties of political society?”
Aristotle, Politics (350 BC/1948, p. 283)
Aristotle famously described humans as political animals by nature. One
implication of this idea is that when people engage in political activity, they are
expressing a basic motive fundamental to being human. If this is true, then
Aristotle’s logic would further suggest that the extent to which people engage in
Political Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 5, 2009
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00724.x
755
0162-895X ? 2009 International Society of Political Psychology
Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,
and PO Box 378 Carlton South, 3053 Victoria Australia

political activism might be positively associated with their well-being (see, e.g.,
Duvall & Dotson, 1998). Such a conclusion rests on Aristotle’s conception of
well-being, known as eudaimonia, which is maximized to the extent people make
meaning out of their lives and express who they actually are (Ryan & Deci, 2001).
A variety of psychological thinkers have similarly suggested that being politically
active expresses a basic human motive necessary for well-being.
For example, Alfred Adler (1938/1964) held that social interest, or a concern
with fostering the welfare of others, was a fundamental human striving and that
expression of social interest was a prerequisite for psychological health. In support
of this idea, Leak and Leak (2006) found that college students’ scores on a
self-report measure of social interest were positively correlated with their life
satisfaction, self-esteem, self-actualization, vitality, and experiences of positive
affect and negatively correlated with their psychological distress, feelings of
alienation, and experiences of negative affect. Similarly, Erik Erikson’s (1950)
concept of generativity has much in common with political activism and social
interest, for it concerns the desire to care about something bigger than the self and
to foster the welfare of future generations. Although most prominent in midlife,
generativity concerns were understood by Erikson as occurring throughout the life
span and helping promote the healthy development of the person. Thus, generat-
ivity has been positively associated not only with political interest and activist
behaviors (Peterson, Smirles, & Wentworth, 1997), but also with life satisfaction
(de St. Aubin & McAdams, 1995) and other measures of psychological well-being
(Grossbaum & Bates, 2002); however, studies have yet to confirm a relationship
between behavioral measures of generativity and well-being (Grossbaum & Bates,
2002).
More recent theory and research on the concepts of volunteering and com-
munity feeling aspirations similarly suggest that political activism might be moti-
vating in and of itself, and thus benefit well-being because intrinsically motivating
activities typically satisfy important psychological needs prerequisite for healthy
functioning (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, & Deci, 1996). For
example, Meier and Stutzer (2008) reviewed arguments for why volunteering is
often intrinsically motivating, noting that it can support prosocial desires to benefit
others, that it can provide opportunities to engage in interesting, challenging tasks
and be with other individuals, and that the act of helping can be inherently
enjoyable. Their analyses of a large German sample showed that volunteers were
more satisfied with their lives and that the loss of volunteer opportunities was
associated with diminished life satisfaction. Such findings extend past research
demonstrating that volunteering benefits self-esteem and lowers mortality rates
(Wilson, 2000). In a parallel fashion, Kasser (2002) argued that the pursuit of goals
such as community feeling (or the desire to benefit the broader world) is often
associated with intrinsically motivated behavior and typically creates circum-
stances that allow for greater psychological need satisfaction. Indeed, the higher
the relative importance of community feeling goals to individuals, the more likely
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