Are you committed to me? Interpersonal commitment between strangers predicts students' willingness to sacrifice for the LGBTIQ+ community
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Background: The LGBTIQ+ community has been systemically underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. Increasing advocates’ willingness to sacrifice time or money to pro-LGBTIQ+ movements is one potential solution to reducing STEM disparities. Close relationships research on willingness to sacrifice suggests people are more likely to sacrifice for people they feel committed to. Thus, I hypothesized that increasing advocates’ commitment to LGBTIQ+ individuals will, in turn, increase their willingness to sacrifice for the LGBTIQ+ community.
Method: 358 University of Delaware undergraduates (Mage = 18.73, N = 267 Women, 73.1% White) who were not part of the LGBTIQ+ community took part in this study. This pre-registered between-subjects experiment manipulated the commitment (high vs. low) a non-LGBTIQ+ student felt toward an LGBTIQ+ student through a virtual interaction. Then, participants completed measures of willingness to sacrifice time and money to an on-campus LGBTIQ+ organization.
Results: Consistent with my hypothesis, high-commitment participants (M = 4.69) were not only willing to donate more money to an LGBTIQ+ organization (oSTEM) than low-commitment participants (M = 4.02), t(356) = 2.90, p = 0.004, they were also more likely to volunteer time on behalf of oSTEM, X²(1, N = 358) = 4.79 p = 0.03.
Conclusion: These results demonstrate that commitment to an individual will impact willingness to sacrifice for a cause with which that individual identifies. Considering the disparities that LGBTIQ+ professionals face in STEM fields, this study has the potential to become a foundation for how we can understand advocacy for LGBTIQ+ peers.