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Youths’ Cultural Orientations, Attributions to Inequality and Political Engagement Attitudes and Intentions

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Youth Political Participation in Greece: A Multiple Methods Perspective

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics ((PSYPP))

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Abstract

This chapter discusses results from a study that examined how raising notions and attributions to inequality and related cultural mind-sets, may impact Greek youths’ political engagement attitudes and intensions. We focused on holistic/analytic thinking and independent/interdependent self-construal, two cultural notions that have the propensity to affect inequality attributions and political engagement attitudes and intentions. In a preregistered online experiment, using experimental data from the EURYKA project, participants were randomly assigned to a condition of high or low inequality and dispositional and contextual attributions to (in)equality followed by assessments of attitudes and intentions on political participation and trust. Chronic interdependent self-construal was a predictor of political engagement attitudes and higher trust, but not political engagement intention. Holistic thinking was negatively related to the aspects of political engagement attitudes and trust but positively related to the intention to politically engage. Raising notions of inequality had limited effects on trust and political engagement attitudes, but had some significant effects as a function on dispositional and contextual attributions of inequality. These findings highlight the nuanced ways in which young people’s cultural mind-sets affect attitudes and intentions to politically participate, as well as trust towards politics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Results presented in this chapter have been obtained within the project “Reinventing Democracy in Europe: Youth Doing Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities” (EURYKA). This project was funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme (grant agreement no. 727025).

  2. 2.

    Face is the social worth that other see in a person and is maintained in role consistent behavior. “Face” cultures are mainly interdependent (see Uskul et al., 2019).

  3. 3.

    The study was preregistered (https://osf.io/xq54t/) and was approved by the University of Crete Research Ethics Committee.

  4. 4.

    LIVEWHAT (LIVING WITH HARD TIMES: How Citizens React to Economic Crises and Their Social and Political Consequences), European Commission FP7 project ( https://www.unige.ch/livewhat/), Work Package 4.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Konstantinos Kafetsios

  2. Katedra Psychologie, Palacky University in Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia

    Konstantinos Kafetsios

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Crete, Greece

    Evangelia Kateri

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  1. Konstantinos Kafetsios
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Correspondence to Konstantinos Kafetsios .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Crete, Crete, Greece

    Stefania Kalogeraki

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Crete, Crete, Greece

    Maria Kousis

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Kafetsios, K., Kateri, E. (2022). Youths’ Cultural Orientations, Attributions to Inequality and Political Engagement Attitudes and Intentions. In: Kalogeraki, S., Kousis, M. (eds) Youth Political Participation in Greece: A Multiple Methods Perspective. Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09905-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09905-2_4

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-09904-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-09905-2

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