DOI: 10.26466/opusjsr.1918324 ISSN: 2791-9781

A cognitive–motivational model of voting intention: The mediating role of voting orientation in linking critical thinking to voting intention

Ömer Erdoğan, Ceren Demirci
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This study examines how voting intention is associated with cognitive and motivational processes by focusing on the evaluative meaning individuals attribute to electoral participation. Rather than treating voting intention as the direct outcome of isolated predictors, the proposed model considers voting orientation—defined as the personal importance, civic meaning, and participatory value attributed to voting—as a possible intermediary between critical thinking disposition and voting intention. Locus of control is examined as a potential boundary condition of this indirect association. Data were collected from 383 eligible voters residing across the seven geographical regions of Türkiye. The findings showed that critical thinking was positively associated with voting orientation and that voting orientation was, in turn, positively associated with voting intention. Critical thinking also showed a significant total association with voting intention; however, the remaining direct association was small and nonsignificant after voting orientation was included in the model. The bootstrap indirect effect through voting orientation was statistically significant. A sensitivity analysis using a single voting-orientation item produced the same substantive pattern: the indirect association remained statistically significant, whereas the remaining direct association was nonsignificant. Neither the interaction between critical thinking and locus of control nor the index of moderated mediation was statistically significant. Overall, the findings are consistent with the view that the relationship between a broad cognitive disposition and voting intention is partly organized through the meaning and value individuals assign to voting. Because the study was cross-sectional and based on a convenience sample, the results should not be interpreted as evidence of causal mediation or generalized to the Turkish electorate as a whole.

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