Self-determination theory and the role of political interest in adolescents' sociopolitical development

Abstract

In this study we adopted an agentic perspective and used self-determination theory to analyze the role of political interest in youth's sociopolitical development. Inspired by this theoretical framework, we identified indicators of the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence within the political sphere. We followed two age cohorts (Swedish 13-and 16-year-olds) over one year, with a total of 1,992 adolescents, who are at a crucial age for sociopolitical development. Results from autoregressive structural cross-lagged models indicated that political interest predicted significant increases in autonomy, relatedness, and competence over one year, but that these psychological needs did not predict a change in political interest over the same time period. The findings speak in favor of an agentic perspective, suggesting that political interest can serve as a basis for youth's political development.

The Role of Curiosity in the Sociopolitical Development of Black and Latinx Adolescents

“…In other words, perhaps the dispositional curiosity measured in this study, in fact, encompassed (or served as a proxy for) adolescents' feelings of political interest. Recall that Russo and Stattin () found that adolescents who are politically interested are more likely to engage with current events and pressing sociopolitical issues in the news. Adolescents more attuned to such current events and sociopolitical issues may also be more committed to engaging in political action that challenges those issues and events they find to be unjust (Russo & Amnå, ).…”

“…In support of Freire's claims, research on political interest—“a citizen's willingness to pay attention to political phenomena at the possible expense of other topics” (Lupia & Philpot, , p. 1122)—has been connected to political knowledge, political concern, and several other forms of political engagement (Russo & Stattin, ; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, ). For example, Russo and Stattin () found that political interest was associated with engagement with the news, various forms of discussion and excitement about political talk, and efficacy regarding political skills in adolescents.…”

Proposing a TAM-SDT-Based Model to Examine the User Acceptance of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

“…In this manner, three constructs could be incorporated to the present study from SDT: (1) need for autonomy, (2) need for competence, and (3) need for relatedness [ 21 ]. First, autonomy refers to the self-regulation or self-control of behavior [ 44 , 45 ]. Therefore, this dimension recognizes the capacity of encouraging the development of self-inflicted individual actions.…”

Predicting Students’ Behavioral Intention to Use Open Source Software: A Combined View of the Technology Acceptance Model and Self-Determination Theory

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