RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POSITIVE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN EMOTIONS AND VOTING BEHAVIOUR AMONG VOTERS IN MACHAKOS COUNTY
Mwanza Lawrence Maingi - Master of Community Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Dr. Geoffrey Wango - Psychology Department, University of Nairobi, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Much of politics is emotional. People respond to political objects emotionally, and these emotional reactions can have an impact on people’s behaviour and attitudes. Political campaigns are saturated with emotional appeals and try to evoke negative and positive emotions among the electorate. The purpose of this study was to examined the relationship between electoral campaign emotions and voting behaviour among voters in Machakos County. The study objective was to assess the relationship between positive electoral campaign emotions and voting behaviour among voters. This study adopted a correlational research design. Stratified sampling was used to select 400 respondents from 8 electoral wards in Machakos County. Demographic variables of the respondents were analyzed using descriptive analysis. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to show the strength of the relationship between positive electoral campaign emotions and voting behaviour among voters. A regression analysis was used to assess the association between the variables and describe the relationship in percentages. Regression was used to show how gender, age, marital status, employment status, religion, education level, ethnicity, and monthly income contribute to the voting behaviour among voters in Machakos County. The results revealed that there was a statistically significant relationship between positive emotions and voting behaviour among the voters, where negative emotions were found to significantly predict voting behaviour. Moreover, marital status, education level and monthly income statistically significantly influenced the relationship between positive voting emotions and voting behaviour. The study concluded that positive electoral campaign emotions significantly predict the voting behaviour of registered voters in Machakos County. The study recommended that strong social sensitization should be carried out by community organizations and electoral commissions to encourage female voters and young people to take part in elections.