Social psychological variables affecting political participation of youth in Turkey


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology, Turkey

Approval Date: 2013

Student: SERKAN PAKHUYLU

Supervisor: NURAY SAKALLI UĞURLU

Abstract:

The aim of the current thesis was to investigate the relationship between social psychological variables - ego-identity status, self-regulatory focus, and national identity - and political participation of youth in Turkey. A total of 308 participants participated to the study. Political participation was measured with Tola’s (2007) Political Participation Scale (PPS). The PPS has three factors which are active participation, civic participation, and passive-following. Ego-identity scores was measured via Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS-2) developed by Grotevant and Adams (1984), including two subscales (interpersonal and ideological) and each of them is consisted of four subdomains (achivement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion). Self regulatory was measured with Self-Regulatory Focus Scale (SRFS) developed by Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda (2002), having two factors which were promotion focus and prevention focus. National identity was measured with National Identity Scale which was developed by Cinnirella (1998). Results revealed that the ego-identity status was related to political participation. While the ideologically-achieved status was found to be positively related to all three dimensions of political participation, idelogically-moratorium status was found to be positively associated with only civic participation. Moreover, idelogically-foreclosure status was found to be negatively related to civic participation and passive following and ideologically-diffused status was found to be negatively related to active participation and passive following. Self-regulatory focus was found to be unrelated with all three dimensions of political participation. And national identity was negatively related with two dimensions of political participation (civic participation, and passive following). Considering that this thesis is the first attempt to empirically examine the relationships of fundamental social psychological factors with the political participation of youth in Turkey, findings were discussed on the basis of previous work in this area.