Political Participation: A Matter of Community, Stress, Job Autonomy, and Contact by Political Organizations

This research is an integration of previous work on political activity and examines a variety of factors thought to be influential in the performance and nonperformance of political behavior. The political participation of a randomly selected sample of local citizens was studied using survey research methods. One hundred and twenty-six individuals responded to survey items assessing participation in a variety of political activities including voting, campaigning, demonstrating, and contacting government officials. Stress, job autonomy, locus of control, contact by political organizations, membership in social groups, income, education, and age were used as independent variables. Regression analyses indicated that stress, job autonomy, number of social organizations belonged to, contact by political organizations, and income accounted for a significant portion of the variance in political activity.