Unconventional Political Activity of Women and Men: the Psycho-Social Determinants

Abstract

Political activity is a type of social activity displayed by citizens. Observations and research indicate that gender can be a factor which conditions its degree and forms. Apart from biological gender, which shapes the societal roles of women and men, additional factors that are supposedly responsible for their activities include elements of the system of beliefs (i.e. acknowledged political values, conviction that political activity has an importance, level of satisfaction with democracy, as well as individualism and collectivism understood as an element of individual's mentality). The impact of those factors on the degree of unconventional political activities among women and men is the subject of surveys which were conducted in 2004, 2010, and 2014 on a group of 1048 students from Polish universities. The received results show that differences in political activity between surveyed men and women, as well as varying determinants in both groups, are slowly fading away. The most important predictors of women's political activity include: conviction of its significance in democracy, and (dis)satisfaction with the way it functions.