Predicting Political Involvement through
Demographics, Overall Involvement, and Political Interest
Participants
Participants were
recruited by an independent survey organization during the summer of 2010. There
were 340 participants randomly drawn from a medium-size Midwestern city with
complete data. The study was approved by the local IRB and all participants
gave written informed consent. Gender, age, religious affiliation, ideology,
marital status, education and occupation were all demographics recorded in the
provided survey but only gender and age were used in this analysis. Female
participants accounted for 54.1% of the sample (N=184) whereas men accounted
for 45.9 (N=156). As seen in table 2, ages ranged from 19-65, the average age
was 45.6, and the most common age was 61 (4.7%).
Materials
The survey was created to
measure political temperament, and contained items that examined a wide array
of factors, but only those relating to political involvement and interest,
political preference and perception, demographics, and leadership habits were
used in this analysis.
Political involvement was a
scale composed of nine individual questions:
|
“Have
you ever communicated thoughts or requests to a public official?” |
|
“Have
you ever held any governmental office, no matter how minor?” |
|
“Have
you ever worked in a political campaign in any capacity (even for no pay)?” |
|
“Have
you ever attended a political meeting or rally?” |
|
“Have
you ever contributed money to a political cause, party, or candidate?” |
|
“Do
you read about politics in the newspaper?” |
|
“Do
you use the television or radio to find out about politics?” |
|
“Do you use the internet to find out about
politics?” |
|
“Do you discuss politics
with others?” |
All questions were coded 1=yes, 0=no. The
higher a participant’s composite score the more politically active they were
and vice versa.
Demographics
included the following items:
|
“Age” |
|
“Gender” (coded 1=male,
2=female) |
|
“What is your political
perception?” (where a higher score suggests a higher perception of a
conservative government, and a lower suggests the opposite) |
|
“What is your political
preference?” (where a higher score suggests a higher preference for a
conservative government, and a lower suggests the opposite) |
General involvement was
comprised of the following items:
|
“Are you a member of a
non-political club?” (coded 1=yes, 0=no) |
|
“Are you a contributing
member of a club, if you’re not a leader?” (coded 1=yes, 0=no) |
|
“Does being involved take
more time than you have to give?” (coded 1=yes, 0=no) |
|
“How frequently do you
attend religious services?” (where a higher number indicates more frequent
attendance) |
Political interest was comprised
of the following items:
|
“Do you find politics
fascinating?” (coded 1=yes, 0=no) |
|
“Are you interested in
politics?” (coded 1=yes, 0=no) |
|
“How strongly political do
you feel? (where a higher score indicates stronger feelings) |
|
“How many days per week do
you use the internet/ television/ radio/ newspaper to learn political
information?” (where a higher score indicates higher frequency) |
Procedures
Participants were
issued the survey by the researcher and asked to complete it. When they were
finished with the survey they were given a standard working memory test where a
string of numbers would appear on a screen in front of them, and they were
asked to remember, and recite, as many as they could when prompted by the
researcher. The working memory task was not used in this analysis.