Open AccessSocio-psychological characteristics of women abstinents and voters in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author(s) -
Srdjan Puhalo,
Jelena Milinović,
Aleksandra Arsenijevic-Puhalo
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
psihologija
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1451-9283
pISSN - 0048-5705
DOI - 10.2298/psi0903329p
Subject(s) - likert scale , psychology , nationalism , locus of control , social psychology , democracy , politics , everyday life , political science , developmental psychology , law
Our research aims to find out if there is a difference between women voters and abstinents in Bosnia and Herzegovina, considering certain socio-psychological characteristics. For the purpose of this research we used Likert scales to measure: tolerance to other ideas, nationalism, ethical superiority, attitude towards leader, conformism, liberalism/conservativism and locus of control. This research was con-ducted in May 2007 on the sample of 547 women voters and 214 women abstinents. Results show that socio-demographic characteristics differ potential women voters from women abstinents. Women who are more active (educated, employed or members of some political party) in their everyday life are more likely to go to the elections and vote. Discriminative analysis showed that women voters and abstinents significantly differed at four of total seven variables. The difference between women voters and abstinents is in ethical superiority, acceptance of nationalism, tolerance to other ideas and attitude towards leader. Therefore it seems that women abstinents have greater democratic potential than women voters.