ABSTRACT
The emerging adult in the Chinese society of Hong Kong manifested some significant differences from the other adult in civic engagement, based on 22 surveys of 25,878 randomly selected adults from 2008 to 2014. The net effects of emerging adulthood are explicable with the four mechanisms of voluntaristic theory, pertaining to the mechanisms of power realization, utilitarian optimization, normative conformity, and idealistic consistency maintenance. Emerging adulthood displayed the strongest effect on commitment to occupying protest, among various civic engagements. Concordance also happens to the ideological exhibiting forces of emerging adulthood and occupying to uphold the contribution of emerging adulthood to occupying. In contrast, emerging adulthood contributes to perception about government legitimacy because of the fit between the forces of emerging adulthood and the perception, in light of the social force perspective of voluntaristic theory. The emerging adult thereby demonstrates radical or at least challenging civic engagement that can be socially or morally consequential.
