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Can storytelling encourage tolerance and intention to volunteer? Conveying volunteer experiences in a UK survey experiment

Toby Blume et al.

Voluntary Sector Review2025https://doi.org/10.1332/20408056y2024d000000033article
AJG 1
Weight
0.37

What the paper says

Storytelling from volunteers can demonstrate the voluntary contributions of others, especially when conveyed by a migrant. A story, told by someone who has recently moved from another country, can signal reciprocity and shared values, encouraging people to be more tolerant of ethnic diversity and stimulate their intentions to volunteer. To test these claims, we present results from a survey experiment of 7,815 people who were randomly assigned a video of a migrant and a non-migrant story as well as a control non-story-video condition. Both storytelling videos stimulate support for migrants having similar rights to social benefits and services as citizens already living in a state, with a higher impact of the migrant story as predicted. Other attitudes are not affected, including one negative result. Both videos reduce intention to volunteer, probably caused by attainment cognitive dissonance. Overall, videos are better placed to improve attitudes than intended behaviours.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1332/20408056y2024d000000033

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@article{toby2025,
  title        = {{Can storytelling encourage tolerance and intention to volunteer? Conveying volunteer experiences in a UK survey experiment}},
  author       = {Toby Blume et al.},
  journal      = {Voluntary Sector Review},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1332/20408056y2024d000000033},
}

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Can storytelling encourage tolerance and intention to volunteer? Conveying volunteer experiences in a UK survey experiment

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Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.