Items:

The following statements concern attitudes and feelings you might have about yourself and a variety of situations. Please indicate how strongly or disagree with each of the statements below using the following rating scale:

 1. I would prefer to be leader than a follower
2. Sometimes politics and government can seem so complicated that a person like me can’t really understand what’s going on.*
3. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the important political issues which confront our society
4. Other people usually follow my ideas.
5. It hardly makes any difference who I vote for because whoever gets elected does whatever he wants to do anyway.*
6. I like to wait and see if someone else is going to solve a problem so that I don’t have to be bothered by it.*
7. So many other people are active in local issues and organizations that it doesn’t matter much to me whether I participate or not.*
8. I would rather not try something I’m not good at.*
9. A good many local elections aren’t important enough to bother with.*
10. I am often a leader in groups.
11. I enjoy political participation because I want to have as much say in running government as possible.
12. I would rather someone else took over the leadership role when I’m involved in a group project.*
13. I can usually organize people to get things done.
14. People like me are generally well qualified to participate in the political activity and decision making in our country.
15. I find it very hard to talk in front of a group.*
16. There are plenty of ways for people like me to have a say in what our government does.
17. Most public officials wouldn’t listen to me no matter what I did.*

*Items are reverse scored

Response Options:
6-point Likert scale
Strongly disagree - 1
Strongly agree - 6