Public service motivation, prosocial motivation, prosocial behavior, and altruism: Towards disentanglement and conceptual clarity

Research on public service motivation (PSM) has made great strides in terms of study output over the past decades. In light of the enormous scholarly attention that PSM has received, we find it all the more surprising that... [ view full abstract ]

Research on public service motivation (PSM) has made great strides in terms of study output over the past decades. In light of the enormous scholarly attention that PSM has received, we find it all the more surprising that there still exist considerable conceptual ambiguities and overlaps with related concepts such as prosocial motivation, prosocial behavior, and altruism that remain unresolved. We address this issue by systematically carving out the differences and similarities between these concepts using three key criteria: theoretical foundations, reference categories (beneficiaries and temporal focus), and stages of human action. This allows us to clarify the conceptual space of PSM and the various other concepts, and to recommend a set of compatible definitions, which will help avoid confusion in future research. Using qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 29 police officers, we find empirical support for our argument that PSM and prosocial motivation are not identical. Specifically, the results indicate that prosocially motivated officers strive to benefit others whom they are in personal contact with. Just like prosocial motivation, PSM was found to be an important source of work motivation. However, it seems to be a much weaker driver of actual behavior. We discuss potential reasons for this finding.