Political attitudes and political participation: A panel study on socialization and self-selection effects among late adolescents

The expectation that participation entails socialization effects on political attitudes is not routinely tested in a longitudinal manner. In this article, we report on a two-year panel study among 4325 late adolescents in Belgium. By means of a cross-lagged structural equation model, it was ascertained that the relationship between participation and attitudes is reciprocal. The relationship between participation (at Time1) and attitudes (at Time2) was significantly stronger than the relationship between attitudes (at Time1) and participation (at Time2). Therefore, the current study supports the socialization perspective. Individual and collective forms of participation have equally strong socialization effects.