Sanderson Rebecca, Prentice Mike, Wolf Lukas, Weinstein Netta, Kasser Tim, Crompton Tom
Common Cause Foundation, Powys, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC, United States.
Front Psychol. 2019 Mar 22;10:559. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00559. eCollection 2019.
Healthy democracies require civic engagement (e.g., voting) from their citizens. Past research has suggested that civic engagement is positively associated with self-transcendence values of care and concern for the welfare of others, and negatively associated with self-enhancement values of self-interest, dominance, and personal success. However, research has yet to address whether people's are related to civic engagement. Across three studies with nationally representative samples in the UK and US (s ≥ 1,000), we explored how civic engagement relates to (a) perceptions of national values, (b) perceptions of the values of one's typical compatriot, and (c) perceptions of the values encouraged by social and cultural institutions. Study 1 showed that the tendency for British citizens to perceive British culture as valuing self-transcendence was associated with an increased likelihood of voting in the 2015 general election. These findings were replicated for "a typical British person" (Study 2) and "a typical American person" (Study 3); Studies 2 and 3 also found that perceived self-enhancement values of typical compatriots were negatively correlated with reported voting. We also examined how perceptions of others' values relate to cultural estrangement-the feeling of not fitting in one's culture or of being atypical. Like civic engagement, those who perceived less self-transcendence and more self-enhancement in their culture felt more culturally estranged. Mediation analyses in Studies 2 and 3 revealed that estrangement helped to explain the relationship between perceptions of others' values and voting. In sum, the extent to which Brits and Americans perceive that self-transcendence values are strongly held by other citizens is associated with feeling less estranged and with reports of being more civically engaged. In contrast, the perception that these targets hold or promote self-enhancement values is positively associated with feelings of estrangement, to the detriment of civic engagement. Implications for future research and democratic processes are discussed.
健康的民主制度需要公民的公民参与（如投票）。过去的研究表明，公民参与与关心他人福利的自我超越价值观呈正相关，与自我利益、支配和个人成功的自我提升价值观呈负相关。然而，研究尚未探讨人们的[此处原文缺失具体内容]是否与公民参与有关。在对英国和美国具有全国代表性样本的三项研究中（样本量s≥1000），我们探讨了公民参与如何与以下方面相关：（a）对国家价值观的认知，（b）对自己典型同胞价值观的认知，以及（c）对社会和文化机构所鼓励价值观的认知。研究1表明，英国公民认为英国文化重视自我超越的倾向与在2015年大选中投票的可能性增加有关。这些发现对于“一个典型的英国人”（研究2）和“一个典型的美国人”（研究3）得到了重复验证；研究2和3还发现，对典型同胞的自我提升价值观的认知与报告的投票行为呈负相关。我们还研究了对他人价值观的认知如何与文化疏离感——即感觉不适应自己的文化或与众不同——相关。与公民参与一样，那些在自己文化中感知到较少自我超越和较多自我提升的人会感到更强烈的文化疏离感。研究2和3中的中介分析表明，疏离感有助于解释对他人价值观的认知与投票之间的关系。总之，英国人和美国人认为其他公民强烈持有自我超越价值观的程度，与较少的疏离感以及更多的公民参与报告相关。相反，认为这些对象持有或推崇自我提升价值观的认知与疏离感呈正相关，对公民参与不利。本文讨论了对未来研究和民主进程的启示。
