4.2. Variables

Protest behaviour: It was evaluated from 6 items corresponding to the following political protest activities: participating in strikes or unauthorized demonstrations, taking part in collective protests, refusing to pay taxes, blocking traffic, participate in the occupation of public buildings, boycott or deliberately purchase products for ethical, environmental or economic reasons. The frequency of participation in each of the protest activities was measured through a 5-point valuation scale ranging from 1 (I have never done it and would never do it under any circumstances) to 5 (I have done it many times). The individual protest behaviour index was calculated by summing the reported scores per item (M=8.77; SD=4.12). The scale used has a satisfactory level of internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.89).

Political use of social media: Five types of political behaviour that can be developed via social media were consulted, focusing attention on informational (receiving content and news related to political issues) and expressive behaviours (writing political opinions; responding or commenting on views expressed by other users; sharing images, links, videos and other content related to politics or electoral processes; chatting with others on political or electoral issues). The frequency of participation in each activity was measured by a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 5 (Always). The behaviours reported were examined with respect to the Facebook and Twitter platforms. From the sum of the responses per item, indexes of political use were built for both the case of Facebook (M=8.42; SD=4.00; α=0.89) as Twitter (M=7.12; SD=3.61; α=0.93), in addition to an aggregated index for the two platforms (M=15.54; SD=6.95; α=0.93).

Political group membership: The degree of offline involvement of participants with 9 types of groups of a political nature was assessed. Contemplating political parties, trade unions, professional associations, women’s associations, environmental organizations, animal rights groups, among others. The relationship with each political group was measured by response options ranging from 1 (I have never been a member) to 4 (I am a member and actively participate). The political group membership index was obtained by adding the scores assigned to each item (M=10.80; SD=3.82; α=0.89).

Socioeconomic status: First, each participant’s equivalent net income was obtained by dividing household income for the reported household size (Castillo, Miranda & Cabib, 2013). Assuming socioeconomic status as the combination of income and schooling (Morris and Morris, 2013), the product between equivalent net income and level of education was obtained, the resulting values were standardized to z-scores (M=0; SD=1).

Political efficacy: For the external dimension, 4 items were used that evaluate the individual perception of the degree of responsivity and interest of the political system towards citizen demands and proposals. In the case of the internal dimension, the 4-item scale formulated by Niemi, Craig and Mattei (1991) was adapted to measure self-perceived competition by the individual to participate in political actions and achieve the proposed objectives (Zumárraga-Espinosa, 2020). In all cases the response options ranged between 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree). In addition, the respective indexes of external political efficacy (M=10.96; SD=3.95; α=0.85) and internal political efficacy (M=10.30; SD=3.42; α=0.81) were obtained.

Negative emotions: Eight items were included to examine negative emotional responses to the current situation in the country. The emotions consulted were: contempt, hate, fear, resentment, anxiety, anger, shame and bitterness. The rating