Sense Of Civic Duty Research Articles

FACTORS OF ELECTORAL (NON) PARTICIPATION OF CITIZENS IN THE CONTEXT OF RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

The article is devoted to the study of the factors of electoral (non)participation of citizens in the context of the theory of rational choice. The author pays the main attention to the variables that make it possible to calculate the potential effectiveness of voting for a particular citizen, including the probability of the decisive vote, benefits from voting, and losses from voting. The author emphasizes that, according to the theory of rational choice, citizens make simple calculations to determine whether it is appropriate to vote, taking into account the abovementioned variables. According to the model of rational choice, for the vast majority of citizens, voting is completely irrational, since the weight of one vote is insignificant, the benefits of voting are negligible, and the costs are quite significant. However, most voters spend the resources to show up at the polling station on polling day and cast their own single vote for their preferred candidate. In this case, the paradox of voting arises and the limitations of the theory of rational choice are revealed. The author highlights that several additions or variations of the theory have been presented by the scientific community. In particular, among them, the positive decision to vote is explained by the desire to support the functioning of democratic processes; a sense of civic duty; a desire to minimize maximum losses; faith in the decisive vote; mobilization efforts of politicians; minimal expenses for the voter; a conviction that calculations are impractical. Each amendment is characterized by both advantages for understanding electoral behavior in the context of the theory, and disadvantages, which often come down to ignoring the fundamental variables of the theory and giving the psycho-emotional factor an exceptionally prominent place. The author points out that a reassessment of the initial values of the theory, namely the probability that the single vote will become decisive and the cost of the spent voter`s resources, can lead to a completely new interpretation of the theory and scientific results.

Information Channels and Narratives: To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate, That is the Question

The discourses surrounding the COVID-19 vaccination are extensive and have been prolific over the last eighteen months. There has been particular debate among groups of vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals discussing health benefits and a sense of civic duty in order to protect oneself and those around us as well as considering the extent to which a state really can oblige citizens to uptake the vaccine through a vaccination mandate.
 This study investigated the discourses regarding choosing to undergo the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination or otherwise and how these discourses are framed within the global and Italian contexts. The role of information channels, including the media, was also investigated along with the power balances revealed among the vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals’ discourses. An online ethnographic poll was designed and distributed through online channels and follow up focus groups using semi-structured interviews were recorded for transcription and linguistic analysis. Results show some interesting linguistic findings regarding potential discrimination due to the vaccination pass mandate along with the narratives that surround these.

Values Formation within the Family as an Antecedent of Civic Participation

Values formation during childhood is crucial in the development of children which serves as the basis of their behavior and actions outside the family and in later life. 131 volunteers of UPLB Ugnayan ng Pahinungód were selected as the sample of this study to understand how values formation in childhood translates to civic participation. Using explanatory sequential design, this research gathered data in two phases. Quantitative phase used Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) to determine the motivations of the respondents to volunteer while the Scales of Parenting Styles (SPS) assessed the parenting styles of the respondents’ parents. Data was analyzed using descriptive quantitative analysis. Six participants were chosen for the qualitative phase and their cases were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results highlighted the importance of values formation during childhood in the learning and practice of values associated to civic participation. Parents played important roles as models of desired behaviors and socializing agents through their parenting styles and practices as well as extended childcare. Modeling and practice of behavior through family socialization contributed to their positive development. Volunteers were motivated to participate in civic activities to seek understanding of social issues and real-life situations of Filipinos anchored by their values and high regard for humanity and life. Definition of civic participation based from their experiences was also presented in the results. Main values components of civic participation are pakikipagkapwa, malasakit, and pananagutan which are recommended to be embedded in the family’s core values to contribute to the development of children’s sense of civic duty.

Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout

Whether or not someone turns out to vote depends on their beliefs (such as partisanship or sense of civic duty) and on friction-external barriers such as long travel distance to the polls. In this exploratory study, we tested whether people underestimate the effect of friction on turnout and overestimate the effect of beliefs. We surveyed a representative sample of eligible US voters before and after the 2020 election (n = 1,280). Participants' perceptions consistently underemphasized friction and overemphasized beliefs (mean d = 0.94). In participants' open-text explanations, 91% of participants listed beliefs, compared with just 12% that listed friction. In contrast, turnout was shaped by beliefs only slightly more than friction. The actual belief-friction difference was about one-fourth the size of participants' perceptions (d = 0.24). This bias emerged across a range of survey measures (open- and close-ended; other- and self-judgments) and was implicated in downstream consequences such as support for friction-imposing policies and failing to plan one's vote.

Interconnections Between Coping Strategies, Style of Self-Regulation and Personal Maturity in Boys and Girls of Student Age

The article contains the research of connections between measure of coping strategies use, self-regulation system components formation and personal maturity in boys and girls, students of Humanities specialties of junior courses of higher education institutions. There was revealed that the boys and girls prefer different strategies for coping with stress. Girls first of all use escape-avoidance coping, and lastly use planning a solution to the problem. Boys are most often going to use self-control and do it significantly more often than girls, boys are most rarely prone to the search for social support. In general, the use of various coping mechanisms is moderate. The process of evaluating results dominates in girls’ style of self-regulation, the processes of planning and modeling dominates among boys. These processes are developed on the border with a high level. The processes of programming, evaluating results in boys, planning and modeling in girls, and regulatory personality’s qualities are formed at the average level. Young people generally have achieved a satisfactory general level of personal maturity. Of the components of personal maturity, both girls and boys have satisfactory level of achievement motivation and unsatisfactory level of attitude to self. In girls life attitude is formed satisfactorily, in boys it is unsatisfactory. Vice versa ability to psychological closeness and sense of civic duty are developed at a satisfactory level in boys, but unsatisfactory in girls. Differences in the sense of civic duty are statistically significant. Obtained correlations between coping strategies and self-regulation system components were mostly negative: all of them in boys, and more than half of them in girls. That is, the use of certain coping mechanisms occurs without involving the system of activity self-regulation. So in boys different coping strategies are inversely connected with such components of self-regulation system as modeling, results estimation, planning and total level of self-regulation. In girls there are inverse connections between strategies of distancing and planning, programming and general level of self-regulation, between search for social support and modeling. At the same time in girls there are positive connections between planning a solution to the problem strategy and general development of self-regulation and the process of evaluating results in particular. In girls self-control coping is positively connected with the process of evaluating results, while in boys this connection is inverse, and this indicates the presence of gender-specific self-regulation style. In girls positive reappraisal strategy is positively connected with general level of personal maturity and with ability to psychological closeness, whereas escape-avoidance strategy is inversely connected with general level of personal maturity and attitude to own «I». Boys gravitate more towards to planning a solution to the problem strategy in terms of self-concept optimization.

Interconnectedness Is Associated with a Greater Sense of Civic Duty and Collective Action Participation through Transcendental Awareness and Compassion during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has a unprecedented impact on the way individuals make sense of the interconnected nature of themselves in relation to the world. This study investigated the mediating role of transcendental awareness and compassion in the association of interconnectedness with a sense of civic duty and collective action participation during COVID-19 using a longitudinal design. A total of 336 young adult participants were recruited at baseline and were asked to complete measures of interconnectedness, transcendental awareness, compassion, civic duty, and collective action participation at three time points over a 6-month period. Path analysis was used to test the hypothesized mediation model. The results showed that compassion fully mediated the positive association between interconnectedness and collective action participation and partially mediated the positive association between interconnectedness and civic duty. Transcendental awareness also partially mediated the positive association between interconnectedness and civic duty but not collective action participation. This study highlighted the potential of interconnectedness in promoting civic duty and engagement in collective action through transcendental awareness and compassion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sociodemographic Characteristics and Political Attitudes as Correlates of Women Voters’ Electoral Participation in Counties in Kenya

This article examines sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes predicting women voters’ participation in the 2013 general election in Kakamega County, Kenya. Survey data from 372 women voters were collected from this county, the second most populous among the 47 counties in Kenya. Using these data, a two-stage hierarchical multiple regression was conducted with 13 predictors and electoral participation as the dependent variable. In stage one, sociodemographic characteristics accounted for 27 % of the variation in women voters’ electoral participation. In stage two, sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes contributed to 47 % of the variance in women voters’ participation in the 2013 polls in Kakamega County. Significant predictors of women voters’ electoral participation were: age, education, income, political knowledge, political interest, and sense of civic duty. The article makes recommendations for enhancing women’s electoral participation through legal reforms as well as civic and voter education.

Civil servants' work performance in the context of less effective appraisal systems: an exploratory study for Greece

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether human resources schemes comprised of factors such as organisational commitment, job satisfaction and public service motivation can lead to increased levels of work performance, especially when performance appraisal systems do not contribute to this direction, as it is the case with Greece. To attain this goal, a questionnaire survey was conducted, addressed to a sample of 130 Greek civil servants. In the absence of an effective performance appraisal system, research results indicate that only the civil servants with a high degree of self-motivation and an in-depth sense of civic duty have the reasons to be better at their work and enhance their performance. Finally, contrary to the expectations of a number of public administration scholars and stakeholders, factors such as organisational commitment and job satisfaction are not proved to have a significant impact on work performance.

STRUCTURE AND FEATURES OF FORMATION OF CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

The article reveals the essence of the integral indicator of the personality's quality of the student's civil responsibility, which determines the effectiveness of the continuous process and the result of personal and educational development. The research is aimed at developing a universal scientific and effective system for forming the civic responsibility of primary school students. On the basis of developments of modern psychological and pedagogical research the holistic approach to understanding of formation of civic responsibility of schoolchildren is grounded. An attempt is made to determine the phenomenon of formation of the civic responsibility of the pupils of the main school as an integrative manifestation of a number of its constituent components related to the peculiarities of educational activity. The aim of the study was to identify the structure and features of the formation of civic responsibility of primary school students. To achieve the goal at various stages of scientific search, a complex of such interrelated methods is used: analysis, classification, generalization of theoretical approaches of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, psychology to study the essence, structure and peculiarities of the formation of civic responsibility; study of psychological and pedagogical sources for the definition of the terminology apparatus of the study. In the context of the study, we will find out the content of the constituent concepts of "formation", "responsibility", "citizenship" as the leading components of the phenomenon of "civil responsibility". The notion of responsibility is defined as an integral indicator of the quality of the individual, which includes the process and the result development of human activity, characterized by the achievement of its indicators for reporting its actions and deeds, qualitative characteristics and completeness of implementation and stabilization of the systemic qualities of public accountability of the individual as an indicator of her position of life. Citizenship acts as a spiritual and moral value, a worldview and psychological characteristic of a person, conditioned by its state self-identification, awareness of belonging to a particular country. Differentiation of the general components of the structure of civic responsibility on the features that characterize a person: a sense of civic duty, patriotism, social activity, interest in social life, participation in society, the need for communication, collectivism, national and planetary consciousness. the achievement of pupils of the primary school of optimal levels of civil responsibility is due to their acquisition of their constituent components.

Expressive Voting in Autocracies: A Theory of Non-Economic Participation with Evidence from Cameroon

Why do people vote in autocratic elections? Until now, most answers to this question have argued that people vote because they expect a material reward, such as patronage or a direct transfer via vote-buying, or as a way of rewarding the regime for its economic performance. I argue that citizens also vote for different non-economic, expressive reasons, such as a sense of civic duty or a desire to improve the democratic process. I present data from an original quasi-national public-opinion survey conducted in Cameroon, which shows that expressive reasons for voting can explain more variation in voting behavior than economic reasons. These different motivations challenge the implications of existing models of democratization by explaining how some of the poorest electoral autocracies have withstood decades of economic stagnation.

The Educational Correlates of Voting: A Cross‐sectional Study of Finnish Undergraduates’ Turnout in the 2014 European Parliament Election

Why do well‐educated citizens show high turnout in elections? Despite broad scholarly agreement that educational attainment predicts electoral participation, there is little consensus about which aspects of higher education account for this positive association. This study addresses this gap in the empirical literature by investigating the educational correlates of micro‐level turnout. To this end, the article first discuss two types of factors that prior research has suggested to connect higher education to voting: participation‐enhancing benefits; and the type of education. Using a unique, nationally representative survey of the 2012 cohort of Finnish undergraduates, the relative importance of and relationships between these competing factors in explaining the students’ intended voting in the 2014 European Parliament election are tested. It is found that turnout is positively associated with the student’s sense of political efficacy, which also mediates between an open classroom environment and turnout. Furthermore, students enrolled in the academic university track have stronger voting intentions – an effect that reflects their sense of civic duty. By contrast, no support is found for the effect of social network centrality. These results suggest that several, but not all, elements of higher education as discussed in the literature are relevant for electoral participation.

Is civic duty the solution to the paradox of voting?

Although sense of civic duty is seen by many scholars as the most obvious solution to the paradox of voting, very few empirical studies provide clear evidence on that motive. We use blood donation to build proxies, focusing only on intrinsic motivations, and then introduce such measures into electoral turnout regressions. Our results show that civic duty has a strong influence on voter turnout rates, confirming that the satisfaction voters receive from voting matters regardless of election outcomes. The results are even stronger when we incorporate the number of plasma and platelet donations, which take more time and require stronger commitments from donors.

Voters and Abstainers in National and European Elections

Through a panel analysis conducted in Bavaria, which covers two adjacent elections – the federal elections and the European elections in 2013 and 2014 – we examine the attitudinal factors that drive citizens’ propensity to turn out. We find that abstainers have generally low levels of knowledge, interest and sense of civic duty. National-level voters have relatively high interest, knowledge and sense of duty in national politics, but not in European affairs. In contrast, European- and national-level voters have high interest, knowledge and a sense of duty for both national and European politics. This finding contextualizes the characterization of European elections as second-order national elections. While prior research has established that voters make their vote choice based on national-level politics, we demonstrate that European elections are not national elections when it comes to citizens’ decision to vote. Rather, knowledge, interest and a sense of duty about national politics are not sufficient conditions for somebody to vote in the European elections. The person needs to have the same positive attitudes about European affairs as they have about national politics to participate in European elections.

The Future Cybersecurity Workforce: Going Beyond Technical Skills for Successful Cyber Performance.

One of the challenges in writing an article reviewing the current state of cyber education and workforce development is that there is a paucity of quantitative assessment regarding the cognitive aptitudes, work roles, or team organization required by cybersecurity professionals to be successful. In this review, we argue that the people who operate within the cyber domain need a combination of technical skills, domain specific knowledge, and social intelligence to be successful. They, like the networks they operate, must also be reliable, trustworthy, and resilient. Defining the knowledge, skills, attributes, and other characteristics is not as simple as defining a group of technical skills that people can be trained on; the complexity of the cyber domain makes this a unique challenge. There has been little research devoted to exactly what attributes individuals in the cyber domain need. What research does exist places an emphasis on technical and engineering skills while discounting the important social and organizational influences that dictate success or failure in everyday settings. This paper reviews the literature on cyber expertise and cyber workforce development to identify gaps and then argues for the important contribution of social fit in the highly complex and heterogenous cyber workforce. We then identify six assumptions for the future of cybersecurity workforce development, including the requirement for systemic thinkers, team players, a love for continued learning, strong communication ability, a sense of civic duty, and a blend of technical and social skill. Finally, we make recommendations for social and cognitive metrics which may be indicative of future performance in cyber work roles to provide a roadmap for future scholars.

ДОСЛІДЖЕННЯ ОСОБИСТІСНОЇ ЗРІЛОСТІ СТУДЕНТІВ ЯК УМОВИ УСПІШНОЇ ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ САМОРЕАЛІЗАЦІЇ

The article provides a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of «personal maturity». Personal maturity is defined as a dynamic process of learning new values, making responsible choices, unconditional acceptance of other people, objective awareness of the normative-values image of oneself, the ability to reflect personal qualities, one’s own actions, and the ability for moral self-control of interactions. There are presented a diagnostic method and empirical results of the study. The empirical research was being conducted with authored method of N. Vinnyk. For that the Y. Gilbuh personal maturity questionnaire has been modified and tested. The method consists of five scales: achievement motivation, attitudes towards one’s «I» (the «I» − concept), sense of civic duty, life attitude, the ability for psychological proximity with another person. It was stated that although most students have satisfactory level of personal maturity, quantitative analysis of separate scales has revealed significant shortcomings. So the scale that assesses the «I»-concept, which presents such important characteristics of a person as self-confidence, satisfaction with their own abilities, personality, and their competence have the lowest scores. This was also confirmed by the unstable «too low» life attitude of students. It was noted that the students’ personal maturity is interrelated with their professional self-realization. Activation of formation of the personal maturity of students is possible in conditions of organization of purposeful cognitive activity, in which individual, group and collective forms of work are combined, aimed at the content of awareness and development of responsibility, independence, self-control, emotional maturity, goal-setting and professional self-realization.

Why do they vote out of habit? Habitual voting under diverse regimes in East Asia

ABSTRACTWhile scholars have shed light on our understanding of elections in less and non-democratic countries, the incentives behind electoral participation in these countries remain unexplored. This paper sets out to investigate how regime structure is associated with voters' incentives of habitual voting. We assert that the formation of voting habits is associated with the relationships of citizens with the state and their expectations about it. Thus, habitual voting reflects voters' understandings about, perceptions of, and concerns with their political environment and system. In democracy, habituated voting behavior is strongly associated with respondents' support for the regime because their sense of civic duty encourages them to vote. In authoritarian regimes, knowing that their ballots are the adornments of the authoritarian government, habitual voting simply reveals citizens' short-term support for the government or their concerns with the vertical accountability of the government. We further test the hypotheses against Asian Barometer Survey data and the analysis evidences our assumptions.

Genes, Personality Traits, and the Sense of Civic Duty

Political scientists have long known that the sense of civic duty is one of the strongest predictors of individual voter turnout, yet scholars are only just starting to study and understand the origins of this orientation. Recent genopolitics research has indicated that the sense of civic duty is heritable, and recent research in political psychology has illustrated that individual personality traits, many of which have a heritable component, shape feelings of civic obligation. In this article, we link these two lines of inquiry to better understand how individual differences shape the sense of civic duty. More specifically, we explore the relationship between personality traits, measured using the Big Five model; genes; and the sense of civic duty. We show that genetic factors account for between 70% and 87% of the correlation between civic duty and four of the Big Five personality traits. Overall, the results presented here expand our understanding of the process through which prosocial orientations, such as civic duty, are formed.

Интерпретационный подход к голосованию. Российский опыт

In the last 15 years Freedom House has downgraded Russia’s status from “intermediate” into “consolidated authoritarian” political regime. Despite its gradual sliding in terms of political rights and civil liberties since the early 2000s, the country did not witness any significant change, either upward or downward, in terms of voting turnout in the federal elections. either for President or for the lower house of parliament. Why people keep voting in Russia within little margins after all? What is the meaning of voting if it does neither fundamentally change the government nor seems to dramatically influence its decisions? When voting turnout presents puzzles, the literature usually looks for explanations in different directions: from mass electoral frauds to sudden improvement in governmental performance. The main problem with all these explanations lies in the fact that, usually, they are not tailored to any specific national case. Ecological fallacy may lead to wrong conclusions about individual cases based on inference from correct statements about the entire group. Thus, when the usual arguments are put to the test in the case of Russia, we may find serious theoretical mistakes or shortcomings in any of them. Instead of deductively testing general hypotheses on a specific case, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to inductively build theoretical framework based on existing data? From a theoretical point of view, induction provides a good starting point for investigating new phenomena or for investigating old phenomena in a new context. This paper answers the research question by analyzing Russian public opinion expressed within the frame of the last available data from World Values Survey (2011‑2014), a multinational and multi-wave study on different social attitudes since the early 1980s, some dealing with political system. Beyond the specific Russian case, this research is another brick that bridges the gap existing between statistical and interpretative approaches in political science. It provides cultural studies the rigidity of statistical methodology, and statistics the richness of hermeneutics. Reaching beyond citizens’ material interests and expectations, which traditionally are at the center of voting turnout explanation, this study finds clues to something conceptually very close to the sense of civic duty as a voting incentive. The main difference between the traditional sense of civic duty and the meaning of voting in Russia lies in the fact that Russian citizens do not consider voting as an order mainly coming from above or from outside, but from inside, from their intimate sense of doing what is right. In general terms, the puzzling phenomenon of persistent voting behavior in Russia can be explained in terms of cultural significance of the national belonging and pride. On this a rather large foundation four independent from one another add-ons suggest the existence of cultural sub-groups that understand voting as a sign of: 1) confidence toward the strong political leader, 2) confidence toward all public institutions, 3) altruism, and, lastly, 4) traditionalism.

Public Service Motivation in Ghanaian Civil Service: A Case Study of Ejisu-Juabeng Municipality

ABSTRACTCivil servants are perceived to possess altruistic motive known as Civil Service Motivation (PSM) which promotes public interest as confirmed in some developed countries. Using the Ejisu-Juabeng Municipality as a case study, this article assesses the existence of PSM in the Ghanaian public sector and finds that PSM exists in the public service but its existence does not ensure maximum output. The workers professed having motives such as sense of social justice, compassion, commitment to public interest, self-sacrifice, and sense of civic duty but indicated their unwillingness to commit their future to the public sector because of poor working conditions.

Beyond rationalization: Voting out of duty or expressing duty after voting?

It is a standard practice to include a Duty term in explanatory models of turnout. Yet the relationship between duty and voting is not that clear. Does duty really trigger voting or is it the reverse? To address this question, we present cross-lagged panel estimations of the impact of duty on turnout and of turnout on duty with two different datasets: a two-wave panel Canadian survey conducted in 2008 and 2009 and a four-wave Spanish panel conducted between 2010 and 2012. We find evidence that sense of civic duty is a true motivation that affects people’s propensity to vote, even though duty may be reinforced by the act of voting.