Political Science Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2013
Volume
35
Issue
1
Journal
Political Behavior
First Page
135
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-012-9197-x
Last Page
152
Abstract
Political involvement varies markedly across people. Traditional explanations for this variation tend to rely on demographic variables and self-reported, overtly political concepts. In this article, we expand the range of possible explanatory variables by hypothesizing that a correlation exists between political involvement and physiological predispositions. We measure physiology by computing the degree to which electrodermal activity changes on average when a participant sequentially views a full range of differentially valenced stimuli. Our findings indicate that individuals with higher electrodermal responsiveness are also more likely to participate actively in politics. This relationship holds even after the effects of traditional demographic variables are taken into account, suggesting that physiological responsiveness independently contributes to a fuller understanding of the underlying sources of variation in political involvement.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Citation of this paper:
Gruszczynski, M. W., Balzer, A., Jacobs, C. M., Smith, K. B., & Hibbing, J. R. (2013). The physiology of political participation. Political Behavior, 35(1), 135-152.
