The application of an action-theory model of personality (AMP) to analyses of political participation is presented theoretically as well as empirically. AMP establishes missing links between action theory (especially expectancy-value theories) and selected personality variables (self-concept of own competence, control orientations, trust, subjective knowledge, and value orientations), which have proved to be significant in the prediction of political activity. Thus, AMP integrates (a) situation- and action-specific expectancy-value (i.e., situational) approaches and (b) personality (i.e., traitist) approaches to political participation. With reference to person-situation interactions, it is postulated in AMP, that the predictive value of situation-specific person variables and that of more or less generalized personality variables is a function of the quality of the cognitive structuring of the action situation under question (i. e., the political life situation). With reference to data from 100 West German young adults, empirical evidence is presented for the deduced hypotheses (1) that conventional political participation is predicted best by situation- and action-specific variables and (2) that the exposed political participation of political activists can be predicted best by situation-/action-specific motivational variables and that of political non-activists can be predicted best by domain-specific personality variables.
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Günter Krampen (1991) studied this question.