Historically, interest in politics has been gauged solely by rates of participation in formal politics, or government, overlooking social psychological barriers to participation and community level work. Thus, in order to investigate gender differences in political interest directly, in Study 1, we designed and validated a Political Interest Questionnaire consisting of political activities both inside and outside of government. In Study 2, men and women completed this questionnaire while considering one of two social issues. Across both studies, results failed to demonstrate gender...