Volunteer Attitudes Toward Homelessness - a Test of Contact Hypothesis

Abstract

The contact hypothesis, as outlined by Gordon Allport (1946), suggests that intergroup contact with a marginalized group may lead to a better understanding of said group. As such, the focus of this study was to test the contact hypothesis among a group of soup kitchen volunteers who serve the homeless at a local soup kitchen. A cross-sectional survey design was implemented, and data was collected at the soup kitchen during volunteering shifts from October 2013 to February 2014. A total of 129 volunteers agreed to participate in the survey. Contact with the homeless was operationalized utilizing three components: length of time volunteering, type of volunteering: "new or episodic" versus "established or continuous" and capacity of volunteering: serving on food line, grocery assistance, pantry service or anywhere needed. As expected, the results indicated religion and political affiliation were significant predictors of the belief that societal causes may lead to homelessness. More specifically, non-Protestants and Democrats were more likely to believe societal causes may lead to homelessness. Women were more likely to express a belief that childhood causes may lead to homelessness. The community service attitudes scale was a significant predictor of both the societal causes and childhood causes subscales, and proved to be the best predictor of attitudes. None of the three components of contact were found to be statistically significant predictors of attitudes toward the homeless. This finding may be a function of the overwhelmingly positive attitudes toward the homeless held by all of the soup kitchen volunteers rather than theoretical errors in the contact hypothesis. The overall positive attitudes of the volunteers may have been a result of location as well as the time of year.