Longitudinal associations between civic engagement and interpersonal needs during the 2018 US midter

Civic engagement is thought to enhance personal well-being, yet little research has examined links between civic engagement, burdensomeness, and belongingness during periods of heightened civic action. Late adolescent college students (N1⁄4 235, Mage1⁄419.43) completed daily assessments of civic engagement (community service, environmentalism, standard political behavior, social movement behavior), belongingness, and burdensomeness for one week during the 2018US midterm elections. Greater daily community service and environmentalism was associated with higher daily belongingness and lower daily burdensomeness. Lower daily belongingness was associated with higher next-day community service. Greater daily standard political and social movement engagement was associated with greater daily burdensomeness. Greater daily social movement engagement was associated with lower daily belongingness. Findings help to advance theory on youth civic development. Civic engagement—broadly defined as political and prosocial contributions to community and society—is essential for a healthy democracy (Flanagan & Faison, 2001). Advances in developmental science highlight that civic engagement is also important for personal health and well-being (Ballard et al., 2019). Participating in civic activities, including community service, political action, and environmentalism, provides youth with a variety of important developmental assets, including social support (Oosterhoff et al., 2017), feelings of purpose (Malin et al., 2015), and personal identity (Crocetti et al., 2014). Research examining the benefits of civic engagement has generally focused on links between civic participation and physical health (Ballard et al., 2019) or indicators of emotional well-being, including positive/negative affect, vitality, and depressive symptoms (Wray-Lake et al., 2019; Wray-Lake et al., 2019). Less research has longitudinally examined links between civic engagement and interpersonal psychological needs, including belongingness (i.e., perception that you belong in society) and burdensomeness (i.e., perception that you actively worsen the lives of others). Civic activities involve working with others to collectively improve society. Participation in civic activities may therefore support interpersonal needs by providing opportunities to connect with others and enhance belongingness while meaningfully giving back to society and reducing perceptions of burdensomeness. Links between civic engagement and interpersonal needs may be especially important to examine during national elections, when political action is normative, expected, and vital for democratic functioning. Using a dailydiary design, this research examines longitudinal associations between civic engagement and interpersonal needs among late adolescent college students during the 2018US midterm elections. Daily forms of civic engagement Civic engagement entails attitudes and behaviors directed toward the betterment of society (Zaff et al., 2010). Civic activities are diverse, and may include standard types of political involvement (i.e., political activities that maintain effective democratic functioning, such as voting and following current events; Walker, 2002) and social movement behaviors (i.e., activities that seek to change the existing political structures, including protesting or boycotting; Youniss et al., 2002). Civic engagement may also involve 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CONTACT Benjamin Oosterhoff Benjamin.oosterhoff@montana.edu Department of Psychology Montana State University, P.O. Box 173440, Bozeman, MT 59717-3440, USA APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2020. 1787169 nonpolitical community activities, such as community service and environmentalism (Flanagan & Faison, 2001). Prior research has shown that standard political, social movement, community service, and environmentalism behaviors represent related yet distinct facets of civic engagement with different antecedents and developmental implications (Metzger et al., 2018; Wray-Lake et al., 2019). Civic engagement is therefore multidimensional and incorporating diverse forms of civic action into conceptual models is necessary to advance theory on civic development. Opportunities for civic engagement vary widely across different activities and time-periods for young adults (Oosterhoff & Wray-Lake, 2019). Prior research has successfully measured college students’ daily participation in community service and environmentalism over the course of one week (Wray-Lake et al., 2019). Less research has examined students’ daily participation in political activities. Young adults participate in community service and environmental activities at a higher rate than political activities (Syvertsen et al., 2011), which may be partly due to the infrequency of election cycles and limited opportunities to participate in many forms of political action. Capturing daily-levels of civic engagement requires careful consideration of the type of activities assessed and historical timing of assessment. Presidential or mid-term national elections provide a unique opportunity for young people to participate in standard and social movement types of political involvement. National elections are characterized by higher rates of public discourse on politics, greater opportunities to participate in election-related activities, and heightened potential for protests and boycotts designed to influence election results (e.g., Roche & Jacobson, 2019). Prior research has leveraged national elections in daily dairy designs as a means of examining the antecedents and consequences of political action (Fuller-Rowell et al., 2011; Carstensen et al., 2011; Stanton et al., 2010). This study builds on prior research (Wray-Lake et al., 2019) by examining within-person daily and next-day associations between multiple forms of civic engagement (community service, environmental, standard political behaviors, social movement behaviors), and interpersonal needs over the 2018US midterm elections. Understanding temporal associations between civic engagement and interpersonal needs during national elections will provide unique insight into the potential personal benefits or costs of being civically engaged during a sociohistorical sensitive time when participation is heightened and important for democratic health. Examining these links among late adolescents is further important to better understand the effects of elections on adolescent development at an age when youth are becoming more politically active (Quintelier, 2007). Civic engagement and interpersonal needs A growing body of research has demonstrated the importance of civic engagement for adolescent and young adult health and well-being (Ballard et al., 2019; Wray-Lake et al., 2019; Wray-Lake et al., 2019). Civic engagement is thought to provide individuals with a variety of social, identity, and physiological benefits that enhance mental health. Social capital perspectives propose that civic engagement strengthens individuals’ relationships and social networks with others in their community and provides opportunities for sustained social support (Putnam, 2000). Participating in civic life may also be internally rewarding and bolster a sense of personal identity, meaning, and purpose in life that stem from contributing to something outside the self (Flanagan & Bundick, 2011; Malin et al., 2015; Piliavin & Siegl, 2015). Others have further highlighted that civic engagement can serve as a context to exercise autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Wray-Lake et al., 2019). Civic engagement therefore provides youth with several interand intra-personal assets important for personal health and well-being (Zaff et al., 2010). Despite the clear conceptual implications of civic engagement for psychological health and well-being, there have been few attempts to integrate theory and research on civic development with clinical science. Clinical scholars have used the interpersonal theory of suicide (ITS; Joiner, 2005) to explain variation in several facets of mental health. ITS proposes that perceptions of burdensomeness and (thwarted) belongingness are close proximal predictors of suicide ideation among youth. Burdensomeness includes negative appraisals of the self with beliefs that one’s life accrues greater costs on the lives of others compared to the value it offers. Burdensomeness is consistent with the absence of feeling valued by others or society. In contrast, belongingness can be described as feelings of connectedness and the belief that one has meaningful social relationships. ITS was originally developed as a model to explain suicide ideation and attempts. However, there has been mounting evidence that burdensomeness and belongingness have implications for a wide-range of mental health issues including anxiety, stress, depression, and grief (Buitron et al., 2016; Hill et al., 2018; Hill et al., 2019). 2 B. OOSTERHOFF ET AL.