Recruiting Volunteers in the Decade of Social Action

In order for Non-Governmental Organizations to maintain visibility, credibility and accountability, attracting voluntary members to support the organization’s Mission and Vision is essential. Much of the work NGOs carry out depends on the voluntary support of strong and supportive networks. The sustainability of a NGO, its long-term-success, depends on the recruitment and relationship-management of volunteers. The present case study elaborates on the recruitment of volunteers within the non-profit sector, illustrated by the Otra Cosa Network. Explaining voluntary participation with help of the Social Movement Theory by applying Social Capital, serves to more thoroughly elaborate on the social surrounding influencing decisions to volunteer. The research revealed that the environment the participants are exposed to plays a crucial role for mobilizing support and action taking. The findings suggest that promising mobilization of voluntary participation is encouraged by bonds based on trust. Moreover, the shifting media landscape has an impact on the creation and strength of such bonds. In regards to recruitment, building stable relationships build around mutual support and trust fosters success of NGOs in terms of impact, capacity and sustainability.The present case study elaborates on the recruitment of volunteers within the non-profit sector, illustrated by the Otra Cosa Network. Explaining voluntary participation with help of the Social Movement Theory by applying Social Capital, serves to more thoroughly elaborate on the social surrounding influencing decisions to volunteer. The research revealed that the environment the participants are exposed to plays a crucial role for mobilizing support and action taking. The findings suggest that promising mobilization of voluntary participation is encouraged by bonds based on trust. Moreover, the shifting media landscape has an impact on the creation and strength of such bonds. In regards to recruitment, building stable relationships build around mutual support and trust fosters success of NGOs in terms of impact, capacity and sustainability

Careless Responding in Crowdsourced Alcohol Research: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Practices and Prevalence

Crowdsourcing - the process of using the internet to outsource research participation to “workers” - has considerable benefits, enabling research to be conducted quickly, efficiently, and responsively, diversifying participant recruitment, and allowing access to hard-to-reach samples. One of the biggest threats to this method of online data collection however is the prevalence of careless responders who can significantly affect data quality. The aims of this preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis were: (a) to examine the prevalence of screening for careless responding in crowdsourced alcohol-related studies; (b) to examine the pooled prevalence of careless responding; and (c) to identify any potential moderators of careless responding across studies. Our review identified 96 eligible studies (~126,130 participants), of which 51 utilized at least one measure of careless responding, 53.2%, 95% CI 42.7%–63.3%; ~75,334 participants. Of these, 48 reported the number of participants identified by careless responding method(s) and the pooled prevalence rate was ~11.7%, 95% CI 7.6%–16.5%. Studies using the MTurk platform identified more careless responders compared to other platforms, and the number of careless response items was positively associated with prevalence rates. The most common measure of careless responding was an attention check question, followed by implausible response times. We suggest that researchers plan for such attrition when crowdsourcing participants and provide practical recommendations for handling and reporting careless responding in alcohol research

Psychology in a Podcast Context: Do Brand Personality Perceptions and Social Nudges Explain Consumers’ Behavioral Intentions to Subscribe to Breaking Points?

Two psychological variables are of interest in the study of consumers: brand personality perceptions (per social cognition, beliefs that brands exhibit human-like attributes) and nudges (per behavioral economics, an attempt to influence behavioral change that benefits the consumer without taking away their right to choose). However, no known research exists about whether these variables explain behavioral intentions to consume podcasts, specifically. This is relevant because perceptions of mass media brands are historically negative, and consumers increasingly seek out independent media (e.g., Breaking Points). Therefore, this dissertation’s purpose was to use Breaking Points as an example to study the influence of brand personality and nudges on behavioral intentions to subscribe to a podcast. In two survey experiments (total N = 486 United States adults recruited via CloudResearch’s Connect), brand personality perceptions (i.e., sincerity, competence, status) were hypothesized to explain intentions to subscribe. Likewise, those exposed to the potential nudge were expected to report stronger intentions, compared to those unexposed. All participants viewed a description about and a clip from the podcast. Some were also randomly assigned to view a potential nudge from Breaking Points’ YouTube channel. Then, all participants answered questions about the podcast’s brand personality, about intentions to subscribe, and about psychographics. In both experiments, hierarchical regression revealed that brand personality significantly explained behavioral intentions while controlling for potential confounds (average R2 = 40%). The findings provide evidence that brand personality knowledge can expand into podcasts. In contrast, future research should investigate other stimuli that could potentially nudge podcast consumers

You\u27re Hired: Examining Acceptance of Social Media Screening of Job Applicants

The paper examines attitudes towards employers using social media to screen job applicants. In an online survey of 454 participants, we compare the comfort level with this practice in relation to different types of information that can be gathered from publicly accessible social media. The results revealed a nuanced nature of people’s information privacy expectations in the context of hiring practices. People’s perceptions of employers using social media to screen job applicants depends on (1) whether or not they are currently seeking employment (or plan to), (2) the type of information that is being accessed by a prospective em-ployer (if there are on the job market), and (3) their cultural background, but not gender. The findings emphasize the need for employers and recruiters who are relying on social media to screen job applicants to be aware of the types of information that may be perceived to be more sensitive by applicants, such as social network-related information

Self-Organizing Teams in Online Work Settings

As the volume and complexity of distributed online work increases, the collaboration among people who have never worked together in the past is becoming increasingly necessary. Recent research has proposed algorithms to maximize the performance of such teams by grouping workers according to a set of predefined decision criteria. This approach micro-manages workers, who have no say in the team formation process. Depriving users of control over who they will work with stifles creativity, causes psychological discomfort and results in less-than-optimal collaboration results. In this work, we propose an alternative model, called Self-Organizing Teams (SOTs), which relies on the crowd of online workers itself to organize into effective teams. Supported but not guided by an algorithm, SOTs are a new human-centered computational structure, which enables participants to control, correct and guide the output of their collaboration as a collective. Experimental results, comparing SOTs to two benchmarks that do not offer user agency over the collaboration, reveal that participants in the SOTs condition produce results of higher quality and report higher teamwork satisfaction. We also find that, similarly to machine learning-based self-organization, human SOTs exhibit emergent collective properties, including the presence of an objective function and the tendency to form more distinct clusters of compatible teammates

It's getting crowded! : improving the effectiveness of microtask crowdsourcing

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