The study’s main aim is to look for relationships between political beliefs and political subjectivity of grey voters (over 65). Political beliefs contain a motivational element, mainly due to being embedded in the values and needs of the respective individuals. This can affect the consciously created place of the citizen within the political system in different directions. The orientation of the study on the grey voters may be cognitively engaging due to the several sources related to historical events that took place in Poland. Political beliefs were conceptualized through dimensions on a left-right scale, where xenophobia and religious fundamentalism were diagnosed in the area of cultural beliefs. In contrast, acceptance of capitalism and anti-welfare were diagnosed in the area of economic beliefs. Political subjectivity was diagnosed using an original tool, whose preliminary analysis made it possible to distinguish three factors of the construct: political initiative, political sense, and identification with the political system.

The article presents the results of a study on the relationship between left-right self-identification and political beliefs mediated by values. A total of 1,038 people participated in the study. The study used the Political Beliefs Questionnaire and the Polish version of the S.Schwartz’s Portrait Value Questionnaire. Self-identification with right-wing views correlated positively with conservatiness and left-wing views correlated positively with self-transcendence, orientation to change and self-enhancement. Conservativeness mediates the relationship between self-identification and fundamentalism, lowering the negative correlation between these variables. The more the negative relationship between left-wing self-identification and conservativeness increases, the more the relationship between self-identification and religious fundamentalism decreases. The analysed values mediate the relationship between left-wing self-identification and political beliefs. The observations made confirm the need to take into account values when analysing political beliefs.