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The challenge of making this world a better place: analyzing the chivalrous quality of the quixoteism motive

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Sergio Villar at International University of La Rioja
Sergio Villar
Luis Oceja at Autonomous University of Madrid
Luis Oceja
Sergio Salgado at University of La Frontera
Sergio Salgado
Eric Stocks at The University of Texas at Tyler
Eric Stocks
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Quixoteism is a motive that leads people to undertake challenging actions as an instrumental goal toward an ultimate goal of improving the welfare of the world. The present research tests whether the activation of a Quixoteism motive increases a person’s willingness to perform extraordinary helping behaviors. In Study 1 (N = 66), the centrality of values linked to Quixoteism (i.e., the Transcendent-Change Constellation, TCC) predicted actual commitment to help, but only when this behavior was challenging. In Study 2 (N = 175), the centrality of TCC measured one month earlier was associated with a preference for challenging helping behaviors, but only when the ultimate goal of Quixoteism was previously primed (i.e., awareness of worldwide problems). This is the first work to focus on analyzing the association between Quixoteism and behaviors that involve a challenging helping (chivalrous) action.
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The challenge of making this world a better place: analyzing
the chivalrous quality of the quixoteism motive
Sergio Villar
1
&Luis Oceja
1
&Sergio Salgado
2
&Eric Stocks
3
&Pilar Carrera
1
Published online: 15 January 2019
#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract
Quixoteism is a motive that leads people to undertake challenging actions as an instrumental goal toward an ultimate goal of
improving the welfare of the world. The present research tests whether the activation of a Quixoteism motive increases a person’s
willingness to perform extraordinary helping behaviors. In Study 1 (N= 66), the centrality of values linked to Quixoteism (i.e.,
the Transcendent-Change Constellation, TCC) predicted actual commitment to help, but only when this behavior was challeng-
ing. In Study 2 (N= 175), the centrality of TCC measured one month earlier was associated with a preference for challenging
helping behaviors, but only when the ultimate goal of Quixoteism was previously primed (i.e., awareness of worldwide prob-
lems). This is the first work to focus on analyzing the association between Quixoteism and behaviors that involve a challenging
helping (chivalrous) action.
Keywords Challenge .Motives .Prosocial behavior .Quixoteism .Transcendental change
In the Don Quixote, the protagonist runs into a group of twelve
men with their necks and hands chained. These men are
guarded by four other men; two are riding a horse and the
other two are on their feet. Don Quixote realizes that it is a
good situation Bto set forced actions right and to succor and
aid poor wretches^, so he stands up for the poor wretches,
argues with the guardians and helps the prisoners to escape
(Cervantes 1605/2004, chapter 22). Almost 500 years later, in
the last episode of the The Newsroom series, the main charac-
ter improvises a speech after his best friend’sfuneral:BCharlie
Skinner was crazy. He identified with Don Quixote, an old
man with dementia who thought he could save the world from
an epidemic of incivility simply by acting like a knight^
(Sorkin 2012). In line with this sentiment, research in psychol-
ogy suggests that a social motive called Quixoteism exists
(Oceja 2008;OcejaandSalgado2013; Oceja et al. 2018a;
Oceja and Stocks 2017; Oceja et al. 2018b; Salgado and Oceja
2011). Thus far, research on Quixoteism has focused on its ulti-
mate goal –to improve the welfare of the world. In the present
research, we focus, instead, on a different component of
Quixoteism: its instrumental goal. We define this instrumental
goal as engaging in challenging behavior in order to obtain the
ultimate goal of improving the welfare of the world.
Quixoteism
Conceptualizing Quixoteism in this manner requires a differ-
entiation between instrumental and ultimate goals. This way
of understanding motives comes from Rokeach (1973), who
claimed that some values refer to preferable modes of behav-
ior (e.g., courage, logic, independence), whereas others refer
to desirable end-states of existence (e.g., a world at peace,
mature love, a comfortable life). These two are not mutually
exclusive. Indeed, this difference concerning the goal type
encourages researchers to analyze specific combinations of
preferred ways to obtain a desirable end state (e.g., Sandy
et al. 2016). In the case of Quixoteism, we posit that the mo-
tive compels an individual to engage in challenging behavior
(instrumental goal) toward the end of making the world a
better place (ultimate goal).
*Luis Oceja
luis.oceja@uam.es
1
Departamento de Psicología Social, Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid, C/ Pavlov 6, 28049 Madrid, Spain
2
Departamento de Administración y Economía, Universidad de La
Frontera, Temuco, Chile
3
Department of Psychology and Counseling, University of Tyler at
Texas, Tyler, TX, USA
Current Psychology (2019) 38:931–938
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-0140-8
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... En esta tesis hemos realizado un acercamiento teórico y empírico a algunos aspectos de la motivación del emprendimiento social. Se ha planteado como una continuación en la línea de investigación del quijotismo (Salgado, 2009;Salgado y Oceja, 2011;Oceja y Salgado, 2013;Oceja y Stocks, 2017;Oceja et al., 2018;Villar, 2019;Oceja et al., 2019;Villar et al., 2019) con una aplicación a un tipo de conducta que no se había planteado antes dentro de esta línea. Para ello hemos utilizado antecedentes ya estudiados previamente del quijotismo (perfil de valores, orientación motivacional, espacio vital) junto con antecedentes del altruismo (toma de perspectiva, preocupación empática) y otros relacionados con el emprendimiento (perfiles de valores, autoeficacia emprendedora, riesgo instrumental-final). ...
... Este objetivo de cambio puede verse como un objetivo instrumental para conseguir el objetivo último. Recientemente, Oceja y sus colaboradores han delimitado más claramente el doble componente de fin último y fin instrumental que contiene en su concepciónVillar et al., 2019) Rokeach, (1973), propuso 18 valores terminales y 18 valores instrumentales. Los valores terminales (como un mundo en paz, amistad verdadera, felicidad) se refieren a los estados finales deseables de la existencia; los objetivos que una persona desearía alcanzar durante su vida y pueden variar entre diferentes grupos de personas en diferentes culturas. ...
... Este perfil sería la disposición a comprometerse con aquellos retos que pueden hacer del mundo un lugar mejor. Según Oceja et al., el TCP tiene un efecto predictor en el comportamiento prosocial orientado a la mejora global mejor que cada uno de los valores constitutivos del mismo.Resultados en la misma línea han sido encontrados porVillar et al. (2019) al analizar que la activación del quijotismo a través de valores puede llevar a las personas a elegir acciones retadoras como medio (objetivo instrumental) para mejorar el bienestar del mundo (objetivo final). ...
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Esta tesis doctoral trata sobre los antecedentes motivacionales del emprendimiento social. En concreto, estudiamos la especial relevancia del quijotismo, que se define como el motivo social cuyo fin último es mejorar el mundo a través de acciones retadoras. En un Estudio preliminar confeccionamos un Cuestionario de Impulso al Emprendimiento Social (CIES) con diferentes variables que pueden explicar el inicio de la conducta de emprendimiento social. En el Estudio 1 aplicamos el CIES a una población previamente identificada como: emprendedores sociales, emprendedores comerciales, trabajadores sociales y otras ocupaciones. En el Estudio 2 utilizamos una versión abreviada del CIES con una muestra más amplia con el propósito de validar el instrumento y utilizamos la intención de emprendimiento social como variable dependiente. En el Estudio 3 volvemos a utilizar el CIES, pero utilizando decisiones en una situación simulada como variable dependiente para comprobar las relaciones de las variables con una conducta más cercana a la real. Finalmente, en el Estudio 4, en lugar del CIES, utilizamos una manipulación experimental. Dividimos a los participantes en dos condiciones, una con la saliencia de valores relacionados con quijotismo y otro grupo de control. En este caso, utilizamos como variable dependiente una conducta real de iniciación de emprendimiento social.
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... That is, the ultimate goals of egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principlism are to increase one's own welfare, to increase that of another specific individual, to increase that of a group and to uphold principles such as freedom or justice, respectively (Batson, 1994(Batson, , 2011. Likewise, Oceja and collaborators proposed the existence of quixoteism, a motive with the ultimate goal of increasing the welfare of the world (Oceja & Salgado, 2008;Oceja & Salgado, 2013;Oceja & Stocks, 2017;Oceja et al., 2018Oceja et al., , 2019Salgado & Oceja, 2011;Villar et al., 2019, Villar, 2019. The concept world here does not necessarily refer to the planet Earth; rather, it refers to a transcendental and abstract idea that includes the sum of all that exists around us (Kant, 1781(Kant, /1978. ...
... The four studies of this work fulfilled those requirements. In our studies, the sample sizes were consistent with those of previous studies on quixoteism (e.g., Oceja et al., 2018Oceja et al., , 2019Villar et al., 2019) and awe experience (e.g., Bai et al., 2017;Gordon et al., 2017;Stellar et al., 2017aStellar et al., , 2017b. These programs of research consistently obtained significant effects with similar sample sizes to ours, allowing us to expect a medium size effect. ...
... sacrifice" only when the depiction of the means and final objective were aligned with the instrumental (challenging) and ultimate (global) goals of quixoteism Villar et al., 2019). ...
From aesthetics to ethics: Testing the link between an emotional experience of awe and the motive of quixoteism on (un)ethical behavior
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... Con respecto al tipo de ayuda, hemos desarrollado una tipología basada en el enfoque de Batson y colaboradores (Batson, 1987;Batson, 1994;Batson & Shaw, 1991;Batson, 2014) sobre los principales motivos que pueden provocar una acción prosocial: Egoísmo, Altruismo, Colectivismo y Principalismo, añadiendo un quinto denominado Quijotismo planteado por Oceja y colaboradores (Salgado & Oceja, 2011;Oceja & Sal-gado, 2013;Oceja et al., 2018;Oceja et al., 2019;Villar et al., 2019, Villar et al., 2022. Concretamente, planteamos que estos cinco motivos permiten configurar un continuo cuyos puntos de referencia son: el yo, personas concretas, amplios colectivos, principios generales, y perspectiva global. ...
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