Psychological Involvement and Black Voter Turnout

Abstract

The goal of this article is to account more fully for the influence of psychological involvement on black voter turnout than currently exists in the literature. Using the 1996 National Black Election Study, I test several hypotheses that detail the potential ways the turnout decision of black Americans is influenced by trust in government, political engagement, and political efficacy at both the individual level and the group level. Trust in government has an inverse relationship with turnout, while political engagement has a strong and consistent positive effect. I also find that individual political efficacy does not factor into the black voter’s calculus, but group political efficacy does. Further, a reexamination of the “mistrust-sense of efficacy ” hypothesis is confirmed, but a test of the “mistrust-sense of efficacy” hypothesis concerning group political efficacy is not supported.