Political Interest Across Cultures: the Role of Uncertainty Avoidance and Trust

Abstract

Previous studies revealed a negative relationship between uncertainty avoidance tendencies and political interest at the country level. It implies that when there is a tendency to avoid uncertainties, citizens prefer not to be interested in politics. At the same time, there are findings in intergroup relations literature pointing to the intention to deal with uncertainties by participating in political activities (e.g., protests). We wonder whether a moderator, trust, impacts the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and political interest at the cultural level. The results demonstrated that (1) uncertainty is related to a decline in political interest, (2) trust has a moderator effect on the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and political interest, and (3) the moderation effect of trust is unique to the uncertainty avoidance dimension. These results revealed that trust has both enhancive and mitigative functions in the relationship between uncertainty avoidance and political interest.