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Dynamic Political Interest: How Personality Differences and the Political Environment Shape Political Interest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2020

Erik Gahner Larsen Open the ORCID record for Erik Gahner Larsen [Opens in a new window]
Erik Gahner Larsen*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: erikgahner@gmail.com
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Abstract

In order to explain differences in political interest, two strands of literature point to the relevance of either dispositional or situational factors. I remedy this and show how political interest is shaped by the interplay between personality differences and the political environment. Specifically, I demonstrate that people with a stable motivation for engaging with new ideas are more interested in politics when exposed to new political events, e.g. during election campaigns and when unexpected events unfold. The results have implications for our understanding of political inequalities in democratic engagement and shed light on how citizens' interest in politics can be relatively stable over time as well as responsive to the political environment in predictable ways.

Keywords

political interestpersonality traitspersonality-environment interactionspolitical psychology
Type
Letter
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 467 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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