The effect of perception meaningful life, optimism and values on political participation of university students: The case of Afyon Kocatepe University

The first aim of this study was to investigate whether there are relationships among a meaningful life, optimism level, values, and total scores of political participation and its 7 sub-dimensions (political debates, expressing opinions to the visual and written media, sensitivity to elections, demonstrations and marches, election rallies, service and policy follow-up). Our secondary aim was to determine the roles of some socio-demographic factors, a sense of a meaningful life, optimism level and values on total scores of political participation. Therefore, a total of 355 (248 female, 107 male) students from various faculties of Afyon Kocatepe University were included in the study and the mean age is 21.07 (SD = 1.48). Socio-demographic Information Form, Political Participation Scale, Meaning in Life Questionnaire, Life Orientation Test and Portrait Values Scale were applied to the students through random sampling. As a result of correlational analysis, there were significant correlation among a sense of meaning in life, optimism, the values of conservatism and transcendence and total scores of political participation. According to Standard Multiple Regression analyses that were performed to examine the contribution role of each variable, the level of political participation positively predicted the meaning in life and the value of conservatism. According to the analyzes carried out with the 7 sub-dimensions of political participation (political debates, expressing opinions to the visual and written media, sensitivity to elections, demonstrations and marches, election rallies, service and policy follow-up, propaganda, boycott and actions), the service and policy subdimension was found to be the most explained variance compared to other subdimensions and was positively predicted by conservatism and the perception of meaningful life. As a result, individuals with conservative values and a sense of meaning in their lives exhibit more active roles in all areas of political participation. It seems that the value of conservatism, which is characterized by feeling safe, conformity, obedience, tradition, belonging and protectionism, positively predicts political participation and its sub-dimensions consistently. As a result, these findings were discussed by comparing the relevant literature.