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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1526352

Attribution Theory of Poverty and Ethnic Differences in Charity Attitudes: Insights for Malaysian Charity Institutions

Provisionally accepted
Abidullah Khan Abidullah Khan 1*Muhammad Hakimi Mohd Shafiai Muhammad Hakimi Mohd Shafiai 2Ghulam Abbas Ghulam Abbas 3Syeda Beena Zaidi Syeda Beena Zaidi 3MEHBOOB UL HASSAN MEHBOOB UL HASSAN 4
  • 1 Department of Islamic Economics and Finance, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Türkiye
  • 2 Faculty of Economics and Management, National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Business Administration, Sukkur IBA University, Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan
  • 4 College of Business Administration, King Saud University, Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Malaysia as an ethnically diverse country has a history of interethnic inequality and poverty which led to the development of different views about the existence of poverty. Among these ethnic groups, some sympathize with the poor and help them through different charity organizations. However, these charity organizations are mostly unaware of the target donors that can aid their charity funds. Therefore, this study explores the attitudinal differences regarding poverty among Malays, Chinese, and Indians and the demographic groups that can be targeted for donation and social policy development purposes. In this regard, a survey is conducted in Selangor, where the data through a questionnaire is extracted from the three ethnic groups. Through the quota sampling technique, a sample of 600 is derived. The results are analyzed through ANOVA, regression, and mediation analysis. The results show that attitudinal differences between Malays and Chinese regarding structuralist beliefs could be observed. Moreover, demographic groups based on gender, income, education, and wealth could be targets for charity campaigns by charity institutions. The study uses attribution theory to identify the charity donors among the different ethnic groups overshadowed by the previous research in Malaysia. The results also hold significance for charity institutions and government in understanding the attitudinal differences and developing the policies accordingly.

    Keywords: Attribution theory, Charity, Poverty, Structuralist beliefs, Cash waqf, Malaysia Font: Not Italic, Complex Script Font: Not Italic

    Received: 11 Nov 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Khan, Shafiai, Abbas, Zaidi and HASSAN. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abidullah Khan, Department of Islamic Economics and Finance, Sakarya University, Sakarya, Türkiye

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.